Thermal Wonderland

The next day, March 16, we took off for Wai-O-Tapu (Sacred Waters) Thermal Wonderland.  It truly was.  There are a number of hot springs, but this was the one our hotel hosts recommended, and we were not disappointed.  Plus, we’d been told there’s a geyser that makes its appearance once a day at approximately 10:15 a.m.

We found the park.  It’s part of a Scenic Reserve, and has the largest area of surface thermal activity of any hydrothermal system in the Taupo Volcanic Zone.  We got our tickets, and then went on to find the Lady Knox geyser, in a rather round-a-bout kind of way.  Sometimes things aren’t well marked, but we got there in plenty of time. 



Lady Knox Geyser, steaming and waiting for her grand entrance.

Interestingly, this geyser gets some help to spout off.  The interpretative ranger told us a story of how the early folks came to wash their clothes in the warm water and put soap into the thermal.  It started to foam, as soap does, and then started spouting higher and higher and higher.  It scared them off for a very long time.  And … that’s exactly what our guide did.  The geyser started small, foaming, like a rabid animal, and then more and more foam came out. 

Pouring in the soap.

Foaming at the top, and it's also running down the side.

After a short time, as he continued to look behind him while he spoke, water began to spurt out, going higher until it was steady and most beautiful to see.  He moved away from it as I'm sure he's experienced getting wet before he got it all figured out.  Maybe it’s not as impressive as Old Faithful in Yellowstone, but it was still a sight to see. 

Bubbles, water, steam.  It was wonderful.

Well worth seeing, if for nothing other than the history of how it was discovered.

The wind shifted and we got some bubbles coming our way.  It all smelled very clean.  One woman in the very front and center got drenched with water from it … and we felt fortunate that we were located to the side and only got a small amount of misting.  It can go for over an hour, but we watched for a while, and then got our photos and decided to head back to the hiking trails and the thermal walkways.  We had been told there were some unique and vivid colors.

The general public only sees a small portion of the reserve, and we wanted to do as much of it as we could and decided to walk all of the trails, between 3-4 miles.  The area is associated with volcanic activity dating back 160,000 years and is on the edge of the largest volcanic depression within the active Taupo Volcanic Zone. 

As we walked up the pathway to the trails, there were thermal vents steaming everywhere. 

There are over a dozen volcanic craters in this park.  Some are formed by eruptions, others by internal chasms.  The colors we saw at the beginning were only the start of the color in this wonderland. 

We started walking one of the trails.  There were three main ones, with radial fingers going off on some of them.  Each pathway contains something of interest, and we wanted to see everything.  It was about 3 miles to walk the paths, but I believe more if you went off on all of the trails.  We did it because it was so beautiful we wanted/had to see it all.

More steam vents.

 

Some trees don't fare well, but I thought it was interesting.

The Artist's Palette, has hot and cold pools with extremely vibrant color.  Some change color depending on weather but were beautiful to see no matter what color they were.  I never really smelled a lot of the sulphur associated with thermal activity today.

Some change color depending on weather but were beautiful to see no matter what color they were.  I never really smelled a lot of the sulphur associated with thermal activity today.

The Champagne Pool is one of the most colorful.  It's unique with a beautiful edging of a bright orangey color.  Loved it.  It was hard to photograph with the steam covering the color mostly, but on occasion it cleared just enough.

There are a number of wood carvings throughout the park.  They're all unique, some shaped like mushrooms and close to the ground, and others like this totem.

There's just one cool thing to see after another, and the colors are everywhere.



There's even a little water fall.  This place continues to surprise.



This New Zealand gecko was carved from a pine tree log by Merv Richdale, a chainsaw carving artist.

The Devil's Bath, the color of which is from water from another pool mixing with sulphur and ferrous salts.  The color ranges from green to yellow due to the amount of reflected light and cloud color.

 

This walk was beautiful, with new sights at every turn of the path.  And we were happy we'd done them all.

 From there we stopped by the mud pools.  There some pretty violent mud eruptions there. 

 

 There was some pretty wild mud action going on here.

 

It was all fun and games until the violence started.  What a show.

 

After leaving the park, we headed for the kiwi exhibit, but that will have to wait until next time.