Nate and Kara Buchanan vlog about visiting Rotorua, New Zealand hot springs. Early-morning at a hot spring beach they dig a sand pool to warm up, comment on the extreme temperatures (very hot under sand, very cold water), and note the experience is messier than it looks. They also describe a travel mishap: one camera battery lost after unpacking the van, leaving one usable battery and one month left of travel. Later they visit a geothermal park noted for strong sulfur (rotten-egg) smells and redwood trees. Tone is conversational, light, and occasionally self-deprecating.
Chapters
Sam.
We made it to the hot spring beach bright and early.
Not quite sunrise, but we're still the only ones here. It is absolutely freezing, so we're about to dig a hole in the sand to get warm.
Somebody already started this hole right here. I see no reason to start from scratch. We're just going to improve on what they started.
I think I should have started a new hole. Why? Because it's just so nasty in here.
Let's start a new hole, Nate.
All right. I'm staying with this hole since we have a limited amount of time.
He looks so majestic.
Well, I think this is as good as it's gonna get.
It's very gross, but I guess since I dug it, I should at least get in for a second. Yay.
It's so warm. Ow. It's hot when you get under the sand.
Oh, so relaxing.
Is it everything you've ever wanted?
It's like I always dreamed it. I thought it was a duck going to kidney.
This is going well.
It's collapsing all around me.
You don't look very relaxed.
No, but I just. So relaxed.
I think I'm gonna let you enjoy this one by yourself.
You like it anyway. This is one of those things in life that, like, when somebody takes a picture on Instagram, they, like, capture the perfect moment and it sounds amazing. It's really not as good as it looks.
Now I'm very gross.
I really wish this water wasn't, like, zero degrees.
It feels even colder. This is like. Don't they do hot cold therapy? Yeah. My body might go into shock mercury.
Oh, my gosh.
You're crazy.
This morning didn't quite go as planned. And I'm not talking about the hot springs.
Before coffee this morning, something tragic happened. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I can't believe we've made it this long.
What you didn't see this morning was us spending an hour pulling everything out of the van that wasn't knelt down. Because we had two good batteries left for our camera, and one of the good batteries is gone forever. We pulled everything out of the car. It's nowhere to be found. We originally had three batteries, and this is what the third one looks like.
We have one good battery left and one month of traveling before we go home.
We're hoping we're going to be able to buy two new batteries when we get to a couple days.
But we don't know.
And now we're going to explore a geothermal park that was right down the.
Road from our campground.
This is really cool, but it's so stinky.
The whole town smells like rotten eggs. Yeah. You know how people say that's as exciting as watching water boil? I have a completely different appreciation for that phrase now. That could actually be used in a very positive way. If you're talking about geothermal mud hot springs onto redwood fore. Yeah. This is Kara's first time ever seeing redwoods. She couldn't just go out to California. She had to come all the way to New Zealand for it.
Just kidding.
This one sounds more our speed.
We can't be walking too much. We have to save our legs forever.
It smells so fresh. It's the first time we haven't smelt rotten eggs in, like, a day and a.
