Walking In A Thermal Wonderland

Posted by Emily

The next morning we left for Rotorua, a smaller town about 4 hours SE of Auckland. This is a very geothermically active part of the country so there are many unique outdoor areas to explore. The only downside is that it is going to cost us a lot of money to do all the activities that we are interested in. Shoot.

This morning we checked out Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland (that's actually want it's called....I love it), about 30 km from Rotorua. Very amazing place, only problem was that it was pouring cold rain and there were very high winds. That didn't stop us from going but it did get us very wet! We started the morning by visiting Lady Knox Geyser, a geyser that erupts every morning at 10:15 am, but mostly just because they use a biodegradable substance like soap (they used to actually use soap) to break the surface tension of the water and allow the steam and heated water from below to shoot out the surface. Apparently this little trick was discovered by prisoners who were doing laundry in the geyser. Even though it was a man-made eruption, it was still very cool. The eruptions can be as high as 21 m and since I have never seen any other geyser, I was pretty impressed with this one.

The rest of the visit involved walking around an area where there were many craters colored by different minerals, making the rocks yellow, orange, brown, purple and red. Some were dry and some were filled with hot water. There was a small lake-type area called the "Artist's Palette" where the water's surface was colored yellow and orange with some blue water peeking through. With some imagination it really did give the appearance of paint blended together. Another main highlight of the park is the "Champagne Pool", which is a large hot pool ringed with orange that bubbles like a glass of bubbly. There was also waterfalls colored yellow with sulfur, a water and lake colored bright green and a pool of neon green water. Walking past all these bubbling pools, strangely colored pools and desolate landscapes, it almost seemed that we were on the surface of another plant.