Our Story : Trip to New Zealand: Rotorua and Wai-O-Tapu – Part 33

This is a continuation of my previous posts. Please read the previous posts here.

We had booked a hotel at Rotorua and from there we had plans to go around in the rental car. As we were driving towards Rotorua, we could smell the distinct smell. It smelled like rotten eggs and me and AS looked at each other and thought how could we stay in this place for the next 48 hours.

Luckily after you are in the area for more than 30 minutes, your nose kind of adjusts and you don’t notice the smell all the time.

Rotorua stinks because the whole place just reeks of sulphur. It comes from all the geothermal stuff going on underground, close to the surface. It’s the reason there are so many nifty mud pools and hot springs in town.

Once we checked into the hotel. We were glad that we had a big hot tub in the room. We both relaxed on the hot tube and ordered dinner in. We both slept like a baby, as we were very tired.

The next day we went to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. Wai-O-Tapu (sacred waters) is New Zealand’s most colourful and diverse volcanic area, it’s full of stunning geothermal activity and colours of every tint in pools, lakes, craters, steam vents and thermal terraces.

Forming a part of an eighteen sq.km reserve administered by the department of conservation (although Wai-O-Tapu itself is owned by a Maori tribal business group) it has the largest surface area of thermal activity in the local Taupo volcanic zone. Scattered with collapsed craters, boiling pools of mud and deep hydrothermal springs the reserve provides a wealth of colourful phenomenon to discover.

After buying our ticket, first step was lady Knox geyser. Lady Knox geyser was a short drive from the main entrance. We parked and follow the map to the area. A sizable crowd had gathered around the geyser by then.

AS and I managed to garb a seat and we had a good view. We were eager to see some geyser action.

The geyser doesn’t blow up automatically. A staff member comes out, gives a short introduction, and then throws a bag of soap into the geyser. The soap triggers such a massive reaction that the water comes out of the geyser and goes up to 10 m into the air. It was really amazing. After the demo was done, we took a few photos and headed to our next stop.

There were three options for us to walk around the place. Walk 1, Walks 1 and 2, Walks 1, 2 & 3. We decided that we would do it all; otherwise we would not be able to see all the sights.

And we start. It was a good day for walking, cloudy and not too hot. Along the way, there were many signs that explain what we were seeing. We did see some fascinating sights and some great pictures were taken, boiling mud pools, gushing geysers, thundering craters and sizzling earth 🙂

The path is very clear. Follow the path. Stray at your own peril. Falling into that hole will surely spoil your holiday.

Overall we had a great time and we had some awesome photos for our memory.

Take care everyone, more about beautiful New Zealand  on next post.

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Go to Part 34