Style: July 10, 2020
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STYLE | travel 63<br />
A Rotorua Canopy Tours customer high above the Dansey Road Scenic Reserve.<br />
It happened about 50 metres from<br />
the ground, soaring high above a<br />
forest with only a minor wedgie from<br />
the safety harness.<br />
Complete and utter surrender.<br />
That leaky window? Forgotten. All<br />
hell breaking loose when the partner<br />
tried to reverse from the airport<br />
parking barrier because he was in the<br />
wrong lane? Gone.<br />
Who knew that Rotorua was like<br />
drinking a large cup of chamomile tea?<br />
Because if you knew, you really ought<br />
to have told the rest of us. So, in case<br />
you missed the memo, too, and are<br />
at your wits’ end, walk away from that<br />
pile of washing. Have a lie-down and<br />
let Rotorua soothe your furrowed<br />
brow with its hypnotic magical charms.<br />
- OF BOOKS AND WALNUT SLICES -<br />
I was as hungry as he was. Never a good combination, particularly after<br />
a fraught airport-parking experience. With a few hours to kill before our<br />
first activity, we were on the hunt for food. But within minutes of walking<br />
down Rotorua’s city centre, he realised with a start he was quite alone.<br />
I’d found McLeods Booksellers (1148 Pukuatua Street), a giddy place<br />
full of titles not seen in mainstream shops, where you find yourself tenderly<br />
stroking the covers to the immense understanding of staff. Then there was<br />
Atlantis Books (1206 Eruera Street). A second-hand bookshop, complete<br />
with multi-shaped bookcases choking from the sheer number of titles,<br />
classical music gently playing, three or four very studious-looking customers<br />
and the lovely gentleman behind the counter. Bliss. With four books in<br />
tow and promises to close my eyes should another bookshop try to<br />
seduce me, it was time to eat.<br />
Now, before we go any further, there’s one thing you have to know<br />
about him – he can be a tad fussy about his food when we dine out. He’s<br />
a chef, which doesn’t help things at all. Hand on heart, this is the first time<br />
in our many years together that I have heard him be so effusive in his<br />
praise of a café. Over a hefty offering of bacon, eggs on toast at Scope<br />
Rotorua (1296 Tutanekai Street), he enthused how the vinaigrette was “a<br />
very nice touch to bring a bit of acidity to the richness of the eggs”. Their<br />
big slices wink at you so alluringly that it would be rude not to indulge<br />
a little. A walnut caramel slice went down the hatch and the coffee was<br />
deemed “incredible”. Rotorua, what magic have you cast on thee?
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