Location: Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, Rotorua
North Island, New Zealand
No visit to Rotorua would have been complete without exploring what the city is known for: its thermal activity. And there is no better place to get your fill of it than at Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland just outside the city. It’s full of bubbling mud pools, geysers, hot springs and colourful bodies of water. The park is 18 square km of dramatic geothermal landscape fun.
First up was a stop at the bubbling mud pools! How to describe such an odd scene? The mud is literally, boiling! And the smell… well, imagine what a pond full of boiling mud might smell like, multiply that by 2 and you’d be close.
The Lady Knox geyser is a major tourist draw at the park. Hundreds crowd around,
waiting for the daily 10:15am eruption. While this is a natural geyser and does erupt on its own, it’s helped along to keep a regular schedule by park rangers who add a natural soap like substance which breaks the surface tension and stimulates an eruption. The story of its discovery is quite interesting: the area surrounding the geyser was used a prison work camp in the early 20th century. Prisoner stumbled upon the hot spring and decided to take advantage of the access to water to clean their clothes. Once they added the soap, however, they were in for the shock of their lives when it erupted several dozen feet in the air! As it was discovered early in the 20th century, it has no Māori name, unlike almost every other thermal feature in New Zealand.
The park has many interesting formations, from craters to steam vents and so much more in between. Mineral deposits can be seen all over, distinguished by the various colours the deposits leave behind.
The yellow colour seen on the rocks in the photo on the left is sulphate. Steam vents can be seen on the right.
The “Artist’s Palette”:
Clear or blue coloured water : chloride
Cloudy yellow / green water: sulphur
Orange: antimony / arsenic
Green / Yellow: arsenic / sulphur
Grey: carbon
Champagne pool
Named so due to the abundance of CO2 in the water, which gives an appearance similar to a glass of bubbling champagne. As per Wikipedia, the orange colour around the rim is due to the fact that “the siliceous geothermal fluid is oversaturated with metalloid compounds such as orpiment (As2S3) and stibnite(Sb2S3), which precipitate and form orange subaqueous deposits.” Ok, whatever that means… I just know that it was pretty! And that when the wind shifted, the steam would envelop everything and everyone around it, in a not-so-pleasant manner.
The Devil’s Bath (#nofilter….. seriously!)
The bright green water gets its colour from deposits of sulphur that rise to the surface and float on top. Definitely the most attention grabbing feature of the park!
Wai-O-Tapu, as well as all of the area around Rotorua, is definitely a volcanic activity wonderland! A feast for the eyes indeed… just insert nose plug!
Like everything I do, I dive headfirst, throwing caution to the wind. Leaving my mark, and my shoes, everywhere I go.
Dear uncomfortable traveller,
You lucky Koala you won a trip to Wonderland! I noticed you had your “Headfirst” all-day ride sticker on your hand. The rocky bedpan House of Craters sure looks like a bowel of laughs but diving headfirst in the bubbling, boiling “thermal” mud? Have you forgetten your last walk in the mud? The boots you left in a Swiss patch of mud have already become the source of urban legends. Sure, going barefoot speeds the airport security process but wading your tootsies in the fluorescent waters of Why-no-patu is probably contra-indicated (fancy talk for “not a good idea”).
I must point out that the story of the prisoners and the soap was not histerically accurate. The prisoners–dumped there by the Brits–were in Australia not NZ!
Despite that minor quibble, your commitment to lifelong learning surely makes your employer (SVH/BCC in abstentia) proud. That string of sillyceous chemical formulae (Ah⬆️Kt2🔞 and
$/Tr🤗3) precipate a substrate of cognitive eruptions that will form subcortical deposits of serotonin-induced neuronal orange pathways. And THAT. . .my dear. . .is a GOOD thing. . .