Catching More Fumes in Wai-O-Tapo
9th April, Wai-O-Tapu, New Zealand
Unlike yesterday's cold morning, today we woke up toasty warm and ready to take on the world, or at the very least take on a small part of New Zealand near Rotorua. You see, last night we had heating! This is a luxury in backpacker accommodation and much welcomed at the place we stayed, called Crash Palace (highly recommend this place for that reason alone!). On top of that, we both felt better prepared for the day ahead, as we both availed ourselves of some cold-weather clothes yesterday evening in the local 'Wharehouse' discount store. I picked up a faux sheep-skin lined jacket for $NZ50 (roughly £17) while Manda picked up a jacket, two jumpers and a belt for around $NZ80. Bargains.
Lady Knox Geyser - Always on Time
Duly kitted out, we made tracks for a place called Wai-O-Tapu, in particular the Thermal Wonderland attraction. It pays to get there early, as every day a geyser goes off at 10:15am - and only at that time - and lasts for between 30-45 minutes. It's called Lady Knox Geyser, and it is so precise because, well, it gets a helping hand. The people at the park give it a 'nudge', in effect, by pouring around 300g of soap powder into the funnel. This breaks the surface tension and within minutes the funnel is spewing hot water up to 15 metres into the air.
Lady Knox geyser erupts daily at 10:15am precisely.
We next looked at another mud pool. Much like we did yesterday. Yes, you probably think we are mad, but there's something endlessly entertaining about watching this:
Actually, it's not so much what it looks but rather the sound it makes. There was one particular concentration of bubbles that, every now and then, would erupt with a huge rumble and comedy spluttering noises, sending explosions of hot wet mud into the air. We saw one lady get a splatter of mud who was protesting to her friends about her bad luck. "Hey, don't complain," I said jokingly, "some people pay good money for that!"
We then made our way to the main part of Wai-O-Tapu's thermal park, an area which is covered in walking tracks that will give you a good 3 to 4 kilometres exercise. We covered most of the distance, walking past areas that were littered with craters, strange coloured pools and strange, bubbling vents. The first area we walked through had craters that were sometimes 20 metres deep, and between 3 and 15 metres across. These huge holes in the ground can open up at any time, the most recent appearing in 1968 (and that one was huge too!). I didn't think we were likely to find any new ones appearing today, but it did make me wonder when they do appear how long they normally take to cave in
One of the best attractions in the park is the Champagne Lake. This lake of hot water continually gives off steam and there is a very spooky feeling from walking along the edge of the lake as these clouds completely surround you, like a scene from a horror movie or something. I'd love to know what it looks like at night in dim lighting if this is the effect during the day.
Ian standing in front of the Champagne Pool, as clouds of steam roll across
in the background.
We did (almost) the complete circuit at Wai-O-Tapu and then left, heading a little further south towards Taupo. There were a couple of things worth seeing there (and we were only about 40km away) including the Huka Falls, a waterfall along the Waikato river where the 100metre wide river gets pinched into a 10 metre channel and back out the other end with impressive force (if not height). We also took a look at some more thermal activity at a place called Craters of the Moon. It was more of the same, really - smoking fumeroles across a scrubby landscape that was good as a freebie, but after Wai-O-Tapu it really couldn't compare. We got a few shots for good measure then headed for a backpackers for the night (not easy to find one, as it turned out, as this was Easter weekend and the New Zealanders were filling up all the places to stay).