Day 219 - Rotorua

WAIOTAPU THERMAL PARK (08/08/09)

Early in the morning we drove a few kilometres south of Rotorua to Waiotapu Thermal Park. When we arrived we were the first there and the morning mist still clung to the valley, mingling with the steam from the thermal pools. It certainly created an incredible atmosphere but also meant that we could see barely anything.

The air was thick with moisture causing the large spider webs of the park to be strikingly visible.

Once again mineral deposits combined with thermally dependent bacteria and algaes created bright splashes of colour in the otherwise barren landscape.

Lady Knox Geyser. In the early part of the 20th Century this area was home to a prison camp. Sick of using cold water in the cold conditions some enterprising prisoners decided to use the hot water running from the geyser to wash themselves and their clothes. One of the men accidentally got carbolic soap into the geyser itself and due to the freak underground construction of this particular vent it caused a chain reaction and the eruption of the geyser. Apparently the men got quite a fright!

As a result of this chance discovery the geyser can now be made to erupt at will, simply by adding 300g of carbolic soap. This gives the park the distinction of being able to set an exact daily time for the eruption of the geyser - 10.15am.

It was certainly very impressive, shooting water and steam into the air as high as 10 metres ( 30 feet). Being that it only erupts once a day there were a lot of other people there. However, rather strangely, the second it erupted many people started to get up and leave. After only about 5 minutes there were only a handful of people left watching. We stayed for about half an hour althiough the geyser can apparently continue erupting for as long as an hour and a half.

Liz and two 'geezers'.

Just round the corner from the geyser is New Zealand's largest mud pool. Far more impressive than the small pools in the town park we spent a long time watching, and listening to, the boiling mud.

The bursting bubbles create lots of strange shapes almost invisible to the naked eye. Our camreas, however, were able to freeze some of these moments resulting in some interesting photographs.

Late morning the thick mist finally began to clear. We decided to return to the main park and have another look around without the majority of it being masked in cloud.

A sulphurous pit called 'The Devil's Home'. Rather unimaginative Victorian era settlers could apparently not resist calling almost every single thermal attraction someting to do with the 'Devil' or 'Hell'. A similar phenomenon can also be observed in the names of treacherous coastal rocks.

A view that we had missed on our earlier visit. The number of steaming vents and pools in just this small section of the park perhaps gives you some idea of how active this area actually is.

In front of a boiling pool. Due to the superheated nature of the steam when it passes into some of the pools it raises the water temperature to well over the normal boiling point, sometimes as high as 270°C - a bit too hot for a bath.

Another hot pool. The water table deep underground in this area is directly next to the molten rock of the Earth's Mantle causing it instantly to turn to steam. However because it is deep underground it cannot expand as normal and the immense pressures allow the steam to become superheated which in turn heats the liquid of the pools to much higher temperatures than liquid water would normally be found.

A small cliff face with a vent at the base. A large section of the rock is coloured by the bright yellow sulphur deposits.

Closer up the sulphur crystals on the rock face become apparent.

Inbetween the several boiling lakes of the park run several boiling streams.

And a couple of boiling waterfalls.

The "Champagne Pool" famous for it's amazing colouration.

A better view of the pool. The deep turquoise of the lake itself is fantastically complimented by the bright orange thermal algae growing around the edges. Quite why it's named the "champagne pool" is a bit of a mystery- 10 years of working in bars has never revealed any drink of this particular colour combination.

Standing the side where the wind is blowing off the lake was quite an experience. We were calling each others name from just a couple of metres away because we could not see a thing. The smell of sulphur and chlorine gas was pretty awful and the steam meant picking our way very carefully back to the main path with all the boiling pools around.

The final attraction on our way around the park was this bright green crater lake. Looking like an enormous bowl of pea soup it had another similarity with soup- yes, you guessed it, it's boiling hot.

Having finished an extremely enjoyable day in the thermal park we headed back for another quick look at the mud pool.

We were glad to find that, as for the last tens of thousands of years, the pool was still bubbling happily away.

Time for a late picnic lunch in the sunshine. Trying to ignore the strong smell of rotten eggs we tucked into our cheese sandwiches.