Rain, rain go away, smells like rotten eggs!
Wednesday, June 14th, 2006That’s right folks, gotta love that sulfur smell. We are currently in Rotorua, about 4 hours south east of Auckland. It’s a place known for its geothermal activity, and boy can you smell it!
As soon as we got off the bus here, we realized we were heading further south, as it is definitely getting colder. We’re going to have to get ourselves some winter coats if the trend keeps up. Today also has been ugly as far as weather is concerned, pouring down rain most of the morning, and now just cold and overcast, looks like payback from all the sunshine we got in Thailand.
But aside from the rain, so far the town has been good to us. Lots of fun shops, a cheap grocery, and a good hostel. We’ve got a bunch of activities that we’d like to do here, so hopefully they will work out.
Today we went to Wai-O-Tapu, known as a “geothermal wonderland”. It was very cool to see, although the pouring rain made it not quite as good as it could have been. First we stopped along the highway to see where the land has broken up from earthquakes. Our driver pointed out how thin the earths crust is here, apparently only 7km, which we are told is very thin, I guess it’s 30km most other places.
Next we headed to the mud pots. It seemed almost prehistoric. Lots of ferns hanging down and boiling mud pots! Just one huge lake of mud bubbling up and steaming all over. Pretty cool actually.
Then we headed to Lady Knox Geyser. A little disappointing for me. I’ve never seen a real life geyser, but it just wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be. This one goes off at exactly the same time everyday as the park director pours a bit of soap on the opening. Apparently the chemical reaction causes the geyser to go off. Bubbled a bit, then indeed it soared into the air a huge spout of water. But it just seemed a little too scripted to be nature.
Finally we made our way through the rain into the actual park. My favorite part of the whole experience. It felt as though we were walking on Venus or something. The landscape is just surreal. The centerpiece is this huge body of water called Champagne Lake and the artists palate. It boils and fumes and surrounds the whole flat of land in billowing clouds of steam. The area around the lake and the water itself are all sorts of colors due to the minerals dissolved in it. The edge of the bank is a bright orange and a lot of the land appears yellow due to the sulfur. You can even see some reds and parts are bright blue. The rest of the wonderland was also very cool to see taking us past crators, bubbling pools, yellow waterfalls, a huge green lake, and a bright neon green filled craterlake. Too bad I’m not a geology major.
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