Days 89-91 - Rotorua - Lake Taupo
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
58
70
Trip End
Mar 27, 2008
Lake Taupo,
New Zealand
Thursday, February 21, 2008
We got to Waiotapu at about 9.40am, then we had to buy tickets and get back in the van to drive a short way to where the geyser is. It looks like a little mini volcano and there is steam coming out of the top. There are benches all around for people to sit and watch it, there were plenty of people already there and the benches were soon completely filled. Somebody came out to talk to us all then and he told us how the geyser had been discovered. Apparantly this area used to be an open prison and some prisoners discovered it by accident when they were doing their laundry - it gave them quite a shock. Then, the speaker tipped some soap powder into the geyser. Damn it, Dean is always right and it's annoying. We were told that the geyser does erupt naturally but of course, doesn't stick to a timetable. The soap breaks the surface tension of the water and causes it to erupt. As soon as he put it in, foam started to come out of the top - just trickling over. Then it got higher and the speaker moved out of the way. The boiling water then shot up into the air, about a metre high and continued for quite a while. The people sat at the front and directly to the right of it got soaked with the steam. We got a video and some pictures of it and left before it stopped, hoping to beat the rush back to the car park, some others had the same idea. I'm glad we went to see it, it was interesting.
We got back to the car park and changed into our shorts as it was getting warm now and looks like it will be another hot day. Then we went into the park which I will tell you a bit about here.
The waiotapu thermal area is part of a scenic reserve administered by the DOC and has the largest area of surface thermal activity of any hydrothermal system in the Taupo volcanic zone. Covering some 18sq.km, the area is literally covered with collapsed craters, cold and boiling pools of mud, water and steaming fumaroles. The general public sees only a small portion of this which makes it a good, compact area to visit. The area is associated with volcanic activity dating back about 160,000 years and is located right on the edge of the largest volcanic caldura (depression) within the active Taupo volcanic zone.
Beneath the ground is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. The water is so hot (temperatures of up to 300 degrees centrigrade have been recorded) that it absorbs minerals out of the rocks through which it passes and transports them to the surface as steam where they are ultimately absorbed into the ground. The so called "rotten egg" smell of geothermal areas is associated with hydrogen sulphide, and it smells very strong around here.
The wide range of colours in the area are all natural and are due to different mineral elements, the main colours being; green, orange, purple, white, yellow-primrose, red-brown and black.
First when we go into the park, we see the 'Devil's home.' This is a collapsed crater where underground acid action has caused the ground to collapse. The sides of it are rough and have a yellow/greenish colour to them caused by cooling volcanic vapours. Then we moved on to the 'rainbow crater' which is named after the sulphur crystals and coloured mineral veins exposed in the kaolin walls. It has boiling mud at the base and opposite the crater is an area of steaming ground. Where the steam leaves the ground crystals are forming around the vents and these vents are called fumaroles. There is steam everywhere here and the smell is causing Dean to crave an egg sandwich.
We moved onto the thunder crater which is a collapsed crater formed in 1968. This illustrates just how unstable the land here is. There is steaming water at the bottom which is responsible for the erosion.
We come to the 'Devil's ink pots' which are a series of mud pools bubbling away. They are just black and this is because small amounts of graphite and crude oil is brought to the surface by the water forcing it's way up. I love the mud pools, I find them so fascinating to watch bubbling away. It is an easy walk around here and very pretty through natural forest. We came to the 'opal pool' which is the most beautiful greenish yellow colour (it looks like it would be fluorescent if it was dark) and it is a sulphurous spring. We got a good view from here over to the sinter terraces which we walked along - there is a wooden boardwalk across it. These terraces are the largest in New Zealand since the Pink and White terraces were destroyed in the eruption of Mt Tarawera (1886). It is a strange experience walking across the boardwalk, either side there is steaming, boiling, different colours of water and it is a little bit spooky. We can see the champagne pool from here and we headed towards it.
For me, seeing the champagne pool was the highlight - it is beautiful but weird at the same time. There is a lot of steam coming from it which the wind was blowing towards us so it was a bit hard to take a good picture of it. It is a big pool (actually a spring) and it is the largest in the district being 65m in diameter and 62m deep. It has a bright orangey-copper crust around the edge and looks absolutely stunning. It's surface temperature is 74 degrees centigrade and even the bubbles appear orange which is strange to view. The bubbles are due to carbon dioxide and this pool is certainly a sight to behold. It was formed 700 years ago by a hydrothermal eruption. The minerals conained in the water are gold, silver, mercury, sulphur, arsenic, thallium and antimony. It is these minerals depositing around the ledge which give it this beautiful, bright orange colour that we see.
We continued on around the track, through forest and saw lots more craters and boiling mud pools. Our walk took us to a lake that was the most gorgeous green colour. The track eventually looped back to the champagne pool where the wind had changed direction and we got some less steamy, clearer pictures of it. It was a 3km, very pretty walk in total and we have both thoroughly enjoyed it. (I hope I haven't bored you too much with the details but I find it fascintating.) It was amazing and interesting to see so much thermal activity. We were both desperate for a drink as we forgot to take one with us and went back to the van.
We continued our journey towards Lake Taupo which is the skydiving capital of the world and we both intend to do our first ever skydive here. This is something that has been a lifelong dream for Dean and something that I said I would never, ever do. However, I have psyched myself up for it and although I am absolutely petrified at the thought, I know it is something I would regret not doing - especially if Dean does it and I don't. So, I'm prepared to conquer my fears about tiny aircraft and of heights and give it a go. However, I seriously think I will probably bottle it before even getting in the plane; we will see how brave I am when the time comes.
Along the road to Lake Taupo, we saw a turn off for the Huka falls lookout so we decided to take a detour and go and see it since we had plenty of time, and not so many miles to do. This proved to be a very worthwhile detour - the Huka Falls is kind of a horizontal waterfall, very powerful and very beautiful. The water rushes through a canyon and looks like a waterfall but going across rather than straight down. At the end of the canyon, obviously the water falls down and you can see just how powerful it is. If your boat went under that lot (although the drop at the end is only a few metres) you can see that it would probably never re-appear again. The water is the most beautiful bluey-green I've ever seen and we both wondered what makes it this gorgeous colour. At the top the water is clear but through the falls and the pool at the bottom is that most amazing colour. We got some good pictures and video's of it as there is a long viewing platform all the way along. When I get back to the UK, I will have to put all our pictures and video's onto a website and give you the link so you can view all the amazing things we've seen. I don't have enough time to do this due to the fact that I don't know how to do it and the sheer amount of writing and typing I have to do to keep this diary up to date and (hopefully) interesting.
After our lovely detour we headed straight to the Top 10 holiday park at Lake Taupo. On the way there we got a glimpse of the immense Lake Taupo which at 606 sq km is New Zealand's largest body of water. It is a vast water-filled crater that was formed by a volcanic blast that trashed the island and shook the world more than 26,500 years ago. It was one of the biggest volcanic eruptions ever, throwing out some 800 cu km of ash and pumice, making Krakatoa (8 cu km) look like a pimple.
Unfortunately the campsite is nowhere near the lakeside which would have been nice but it is a lovely campsite where we later caught some afternoon rays of sunshine. The sun is burning hot and looks set to be a beautiful evening here. We can book the skydive at reception here but it sounded quite expensive and we wonder if they take a cut for securing the booking. Instead, we picked up a few leaflets and decided to phone around ourselves (they are all freephone numbers). We went to the phone and got some quotes, then we went back to the van to discuss - Which one? Do we really want to do this? It took about five minutes of discussion and I went back to get us booked in for tomorrow. We booked for 4pm, Oh, my god - I'm really going to throw myself out of a plane at 12,000 ft. I am so scared, absolutely bricking it but determined too.
It was a clear sky that evening and therefore a bit cold. We were woken early the next moring with the wind rattling our back awning. Oh dear, it is not looking good for our skydive booking. We messed about the camp for the day, hoping the wind would drop. It was a sunny day but the wind is strong, gusty and cold. We were supposed to ring the skydive company at 3.30pm to ask it it was going ahead and I rang them at 3pm, not at all hopeful. They told me that there had been no jumps today because of the weather but to ring back in 25 minutes to get a definite answer. I said to them, "what is the point, the weather isn't going to change in 25 minutes - it's been like this all day." Their reply was "You never know, the weather is unpredictable at Taupo." It seemed a bit strange to me but I duly rang back to be told the predictable - cancelled. She asked if we wanted to re-book for tomorrow and we considered it but we want to leave tomorrow for Lord of the rings country, the Tongariro National park. We are hoping to do the Tongariro crossing there; an 18km challenging hike through the volcano's and is one of New Zealand's few great walks that is possible in one day.
So, anyway, we canceled the skydive - we will do it somewhere on the south island instead. I must admit, I am really disappointed - I had myself all psyched up to do it. But, if it's dangerous then that's it - we can't book the weather, Dean is very disappointed too. We decided to go and explore Taupo a bit and drove down the road to see them do the Taupo bungee where there is a viewing platform. It is only a small bungee at 47m, we are planning to do the big daddy in Queenstown which is 134m. Watching them jump off the small one here made me feel like I may chicken out yet. We went into the little cafe to have a look at the video's of people doing it and I was surprised to find that there is a minimum weight for the bungee - you have to weigh 45kg. I hopped on the scales out of interest and I only weigh 41kg so therefore would not be allowed to do this one as I don't weigh enough. I asked if there was a weight restriction on the one in Queenstown and was told that there is but they are not sure what it is. It makes no sense to me - I'm not allowed to do it because I weigh under 7 stone but yet if I weighed 28 stone, I would be allowed. So great - skydive cancelled and probably won't be allowed to do the bungee. More bad news as we strolled around Taupo, we found out that we won't be able to do the Tongariro crossing until tuesday because of the weather, they are not allowing people to do it. We will be away from Tongariro by then as we have a ferry to catch and we can't hang around that long. Damn, Damn, Damn - it has been a day of disappointments. We did cheer up however when we visited the Lake Taupo spacestation to swap our DVDs and found a copy of Lord of the rings, 'the two towers'. Hooray, we've been chasing Lord of the Rings DVDs around the country and this is the first time we have managed to get hold of a copy of any of them. We decided to celebrate this by buying a big pizza from the pizza hut to warm up later in the microwave.
We had a fabulous night cuddled up watching Lord of the Rings with the sound louder than it should be, eating our pizza. It was a really good mood lifter after a bit of a rubbish day.
