Off To Rotorua

We decided to be busy Monday and Wednesday this week, so it was off to Rotorua with us (about an hour's drive west).

Rotorua is a tourist destination (has been for over a century) because of the thermal water features in the area. Apparently there are some magma columns that extend up close to the surface in the region. Ground water near these columns gets superheated and then boils to the surface in some locations.

The first thing you notice upon entering the Rotorua area is the constant background smell of sulphur. After a while, we stopped smelling it, but I'm pretty sure it was everywhere and we just got used to it.

We had lunch at a "European" restaurant (Debbie had the BLT, I had the hamburger) and then headed out of town to Wai-O-Tapu, Thermal Wonderland. There are a few similar attractions in the area, some closer to, and some farther from Rotorua. We picked this one based on its middling distance and colourful brochure.

Wai-O-Tapu has a geyser that erupts every day at 10:15 am so we arrived too late to catch it. The NZ Rough Guide describes the Lady Knox Geyser as follows: "... which is ignominiously induced to perform on schedule ... a staff member pours a packet of soap flakes into the vent. Within a few minutes, the soap reduces the water's surface tension, and superheated steam and water are released in a jet ..." We didn't feel cheated to miss it.

Along the road in to Wai-O-Tapu, a little side road leads you to a boiling mud pool. The steam below boils up through the mud causing the surface to plop and blort gobs of mud a few inches into the air. The mud falls back to form concentric circles which are kind of nifty.

Driving a little further along, you get to the parking and main entrance. The main (and only) building is a modern structure with an enclosed snack bar and souvenir shop. Exiting the rear of that building, you embark on an hour or so long walk through a volcanic wasteland surrounded by lush forest.

Attractions within the park consist of large deep craters with steam rising from the bottom ...



... various pools of oddly coloured water, contaminated by minerals dissolved by the heated water as it is forced up from the deep ...

(No need for those pesky safety railings here ...)

(I fiddled with the colours on this pic to see if I could get them closer to reality. The pond behind me was a bright yellowish green, but sadly all I could do was make me look kind of greenish. Oh well. )

... ponds of clearer water with steam bubbling up ...

(The wind was blowing gently over the steaming pond toward us and it was like standing in a steam bath. )

... and some beautiful forest paths.




Everything was well maintained and although the attractions were pretty low key, we had a nice time. One thing for anyone thinking of going there - the smell of sulpher is pretty powerful in most places. Debbied called it our Fart Walk and it's definitely not for the breathing challenged.

We drove back, stopping in Te Puke (teh pook-eh dammit!) to pick up some forgotten supplies.

Back at the cottage, we cooked up some dinner and finished the day watching some Alias we had brought with us.

One interesting thing for the techno-geeks out there. The DVD player (Bose) that came with the cottage has no problem playing our DVD's which are Region 1 encoded (we're in Region 4 here). Clearly regional encoding of DVDs to prevent playing in other regions has completely failed as a copy protection scheme, and the manufacturers should abandon this stupid system.

That's it for now.

Don