Nov 10 - Golf and Stinky Boiling Mud

Today began bright and sunny and in the PM. We wandered until we found McDonalds and enjoyed some Big Mac meals to start the day off as healthy as possible. Then we walked over to the 9-hole golf course (that was dangerously close to the stinky sulfur pools of the town) and signed up for 9 holes. We got a bag of rental clubs that looked half decent, 3 Dunlop extreme distance balls (terrible quality) and a handful of tees each. Off we headed and had to walk a few hundred yards to the first tee box. The course was a bit dry and pretty boring looking. Teed off a huge slicing drive and remembered why I haven't golfed for over a year now. But we both improved as the round went along and had some solid shots here and there. The course was without question the worst I have ever played, with all the grass on the course being a thick, dense, quack grass type strain and the greens and tee boxes cut very long. And the layout of the holes was usually play one hole, walk five steps to the side, rotate 180 degrees and play the next hole. I think it was literally the smallest amount of land you could have 9 golf holes on. Some (most, actually) fairways were separated by maybe 5 feet of rough and the fairways were only maybe 10 yards wide at the most, so often our shots and other golfers' shots were on other fairways and nearly hitting people. Mickey mouse set-up, but I suppose that's what we get in the middle of nowhere, New Zealand. Regardless, it was good to get out and hit a round and it was a good way to kill some time. One thing that was odd is the distances were listed in meters, instead of yards. I know they're on the metric system here, but so are we and golf fairway yardage should be universal.

We celebrated a successful golf round with some TV then a walk through the bubbling mud pool thermal area in a park here. It was pools of mud or murky water that were steaming or boiling and smelled bad. That was it. Whoopee! Went for some Subway for dinner, but they didn't have cookies left and we need our dessert, so we wandered to Countdown (grocery store) to try and find some, but theirs were all old and hard, so we tried the discount grocery store, Pak 'N Save, but it was like Giant Tiger and there stuff looked gross and sketchy. B bought one of the donuts there, but said it wasn't very good. Oh, that reminds me, yesterday I tried L+P soda, because it's the thing they're so proud of here, so have to give it a shot. It wasn't bad and tasted sort of like a mix between Sprite and Ginger Ale. Not the greatest thing ever, but decent. The rest of the night we chilled at the hostel common room and watched TV and even got to see Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a cult classic movie that I had been meaning to see. Unfortunately, it was terrible, with no plot. Oh well. Tomorrow morning we get back on the Magic bus and ride to Taupo, which has several adventure activities to partake in also.