And now for something completely different..... A few days spent in the heart of NZ's geothermal activity areas. NZ sits on the Pacific Rim of Fire, which means all sorts of interesting happenings just below the ground as tectonic plates start bumping against each other.
The scenery around here is all volcanic, so is full of mountains and lakes caused by various eruptions across millions of years. Spectacular - or at least it probably would be if the rainclouds would lift for long enough to be able to see it.... But there's still plenty to see and do.
The signs of all this volcanic activity are visible absolutely everywhere - in the centre of Rotorua town is a geothermal area complete with mud pools and boiling lakes. And if you travel just a little further out of town to Whakarewarewa and Waiotapu, it's blindingly obvious that the ground's all a little hot. Steam pours out of any hole in the ground - and just putting your hand on the earth feels warm!
In fact, this landscape was created millions of years ago, but in places doesn't look like it's changed since then. Which will be why the BBC used lots of places around here for the backdrops in their Walking with Dinosaurs series. Lots of scope for steamy, bubbling lakes!
I spent a day exploring the volcanic areas around Waiotapu and the Waimangu volcanic valley. Waiotapu was really amazing. Everywhere you looked there was steam rising from somewhere, and bubbling sounds from the ground. There was such a variety as well - thick gloopy mud pools with big mud explosions every now and then (a release of the gas which builds up under the surface), then thinner ones, which just bubbled, with a layer of oil on the surface (brought up from underground).
And the colours around were incredible. The various minerals in the water and the earth around all leave different colours as they react with the air around, from red (iron), yellow (sulphur), white (silica), even green (arsenic). One area is called the Artist's Palette - where water flows out from the Champagne Pool (a beautiful small lake, which really does bubble like Champagne, and has an amazing ledge of bright orange formed around the edge), and the water then mixes with the air and creates incredible colours, constantly changing.... There is also the Devil's Bath, a bright lime green lake. Incredible.
Also at Waiotapu is the Lady Knox Geyser, which erupts every day at 10.15 and shoots about 15 metres up into the air. I had sat at a geyser for over an hour the day before waiting for an eruption that the guide had promised me would happen soon, and there was no sign of anything - so I was pretty pleased to be sure of seeing one erupt. The reason they can be so sure of it erupting is a little bit of human intervention - they put in soap powder to weaken the surface tension and cause the water to erupt. Very clever. But at least it meant that I knew I'd see my geyser erupt!!!
Waimangu valley is also incredible, as there is just so much variety there. We walked down through the valley, looking at the various pools and lakes, and just feeling the heat from the ground. It was like a sauna!! Some of the rivers are aroudn 95C as they flow to join lakes - and there are then springs which come out into the main lakes which maintain that heat! Possibly the most incredible (and quite scary) was an amazing beautiful lake, of an amazing blue, and ringed by white, looking like a perfect tropical beach - very very inviting. But you really wouldn't want to swim - it's 95C and hydrochloric acid.... Nice.
After Waimangu Valley, we went to the Buried Village, which was destroyed in the massive eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886. This eruption caused a nearly 20km rift in the earth from the volcano, and destroyed the world famous pink and white terraces which were there. It also totally buried a number of local villages in the resulting mudslide.
I was slightly disappointed with the Buried village - I think I was expecting a kind of Pompeii type place, with lots of evidence of people and places buried under lava and ahs, but in fact there were just a few buildings, some of which had been excavated, and others just "reconstructed". I'm not really sure why I was expecting anything else, but there you go...
The museum was pretty interesting though, and there was a guy there making traditional flax skirts, which was incredible to watch - the time that goes into them! They take a length of flax and cut a pattern into it by scratching off the outer leaf using a shell to expose the fibres. These are then left to dry, and in drying they curl around on themselves to form a tube (so a lot of people think they are made of bamboo). Once dry, they are dyed in natural dyes, which stick to the fibres, but not to the outers, creating the patterns. In total it takes 7 weeks to make a skirt - pretty impressive!
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