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There is just a thin layer of crusty earth between me and the workings of the earth. A huge area of North Island is a wide belt of geothermal activity with boiling and bubbling mud and water and lots of stinky steam escaping here, there and everywhere. Today, we visited Wai-O-Tapu, a huge geothermal area south of Rotorura and north of Turangi.
Such an amazing and weird landscape!. It bubbles, it boils, it smells, it steams. Geysers gush and mud roils like a huge cup of hot chocolate in which the milk has gone off. Bacteria and mineral deposits create amazing colour displays of rusty red, emerald green, murky green, sulphur yellow, and turquoise. The mud, stones and water contain gold, arsenic, mercury, antimony, iron and sulphur, so it is a veritable hot pot of alchemy, poison and valuable minerals.
We also watched a geyser go off at its appointed time thanks to the park ranger pouring soap into the chimney to alter the surface tension of the water.
After the geothermal area we drove past Lake Taupo, New Zealand’s largest lake, which gave great views of Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ngauruhoe. In the foreground were flowering yellow lupines and gorse.
Speaking of snow and flowers, it seems so incongruous to be seeing lupines, gorse, cherry trees, roses and rhododendrons in full bloom at the same time as advertisements for Christmas bargains and shop windows displaying snowy landscapes with Santa Claus and sleigh bells.
