Geo-thermal adventures

IMGP4873
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We’ve had quite a busy few days sightseeing around this area. We started with the Huka falls, which are in Taupo just outside of the town center. They are pretty impressive with a huge amount of water rushing through constantly. Whilst we were there one of the jet boats came for a bit of a play in the swell. Looked quite fun but we reckon rafting is better!
After looking at the falls we moved on a bit further to a place named ‘The Craters of the Moon’. There is a lot of geo-thermal activity in the area and this is one of the places nearer to Taupo rather than in Rotorua so we thought we’d give it a look before we went for the big guns in Rotorua. It did look surprisingly moon like, with lots of barren steaming ground. There were quite a few colours because of the sulphur and the different algae but not as much as we saw later on at other places. It was quite cool there, for our first experience of a volcanic area.
Before we headed off to another thermal park we stopped by at the Aratiatia dam, which we’d passed the previous day when we drove back from the rafting trip. The dam gates were closed so there was just a small pool of water. Luckily we got there just as the sirens were going and we were able to watch the water gushing through the opening gates and filling the area so that there was water as far as we could see along the river bed.

When we were looking at where to go to see cool geo-thermal stuff we’d seen quite few leaflets and things recommending Orakei Korako, so we thought we’d go there. It’s in the middle of a lake and so you have to take a short boat ride before wandering around for an hour or so. The area used to be called geyser land, but they haven’t really got any active geysers anymore. We waited around by the Diamond Geyser (!!) for a while but nothing happened, not even any steam really. There was some nice bubbling mud that makes good plopping blobbing noises and some nicely coloured areas. Again nice, but we wanted a geyser!

Rotorua is the most popular tourist destination in New Zealand and we’ve had a good time here. We found ourselves a really nice campsite which we took full advantage of on our first night. It had a BBQ which we used before having a soak in the hot pools, one of which was about 40 degrees and the other about 37 degrees. That made us pretty hot so we had a swim in the swimming pool, but that made us chilly so we got back in the hot pool. Nice.
For a change we weren’t leaving the campsite in the morning so we were able to have a relaxing morning and then go to Te Puia. Te Puia is a Maori cultural center and geo-thermal area, but most importantly it has geysers. We spent around 2 hours watching the Prince of Wales feathers geyser going off and waiting for Pohutu – the biggest of their geysers which erupts of average 1-2 times an hour. In theory it goes to 25-30m but we didn’t see that happen. As it all steamy it’s tricky to tell which geyser you’re looking at. We waited to try to see it go really high, but aren’t really sure if we saw it or not! They also had the ubiquitous steaming ground and bubbling mud. We had a look around the village part of the park and looked at the beautifully carved meeting house and food storage house.