MitchMay 10
With the car all packed up, we headed to Lake Taupo with a side trip to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, a place of stunning thermal activity. It was other worldly, a similar thing we’ve felt about so many other places in NZ.
This steamy spectacular showcase was an artist’s palette of color and unique elements sculpted by thousands of years of geothermal activity.
Wai-O-Tapu (Māori for “sacred waters”) is an active geothermal area at the southern end of the Okataina Volcanic Centre in NZ’s Taupo Volcanic Zone. It is 16 miles south of Rotorua, so the drive was only 30 minutes away.
Dramatic geothermal conditions beneath the earth have created many hot springs to form here and they are known for their rich colors. The park has a lot to see, including Lady Knox Geyser, Champagne Pool, Artist’s Palette, Primrose Terrace and many boiling mud pools.
The entire area is massive — more than 7,000 acres. Prior to European occupation, the area was the homeland of the Ngati Whaoa tribe who descended from those on the Arawa waka (canoe).
We combined three walking trails into a single two-hour tour we did on our own so that we could see the entire park and take it all in.
When we entered the park, we first saw the Mãhanga Rua or Natural Double Layer crater as well as the Te Rua Whaitiri crater. These were the first examples of collapsed craters where the acidic steam coming from underground has caused the ground to collapse. The rough sides and yellow-greenish colours of these twin craters emitted cooling volcanic vapors displaying tarnished burnt walls from the heat and elements.
From there, we headed to an area called The Artist’s Palette. Here, overflowing water from the Champagne Pool brings with it minerals that have originated deep below the surface. As the waters cool, it evaporates, exposing minerals that provide the showcase of colors. This area never looks the same two days in a row, changing depending on sunlight, water level and wind direction.
Our next stop was Sinter Terraces. These terraces are the largest In NZ. The water that flows over the terraces is from the Champagne Pool as well. As it flows over the terraces it evaporates and leaves behind geyserite. This process has been going on for over 700 years. The terraces are constantly growing both upwards and outwards.
Crossing a boardwalk, we carefully walked over hot springs covered in silica. Shallow pools of water dry, which leaves a crust on the ground that you see in the photos. This is what forms the stepped sinter terraces.
When we arrived at the bottom of the walkway that opened on to the Champagne Pool the smell of sulfur was intense.
The large hot water pool occupies a 700-year-old crater that was formed by a hydrothermal (hot water) eruption. It reaches 186 ft deep.
Water enters the pool from a deep spring at an initial temperature of 447° Fahrenheit before cooling to 164° Fahrenheit. The water flows over the Artist’s Palette, evaporating and cooling to about 59° Fahrenheit. The bubbles rising are from carbon dioxide, a common gas found in volcanic regions. The orange rim around the edge of the pool contains the minerals arsenic and antimony sulphur, both compounds are very rich in silver and gold, as well as other elements. We decided to skip any panning for gold here to avoid losing a few layers of skin or incinerating altogether.
As we walked to the lake and waterfall at Puna o Ngakoro, a fantail befriended us on the way. There were lots of them actually. We are always mesmerized by these birds and their quick swirling and diving techniques. It’s a beautiful bird and this one posed for us along with his mate.
With the sun shining bright, we captured beautiful views over the lake and at the platform to see the waterfall.
We headed back to the main area of the park, but first walked out on a boardwalk to see more geothermal activity at Oyster Pool.
The last section of the park was another crater with another lake called Roto Karikitea (Devil’s Bath). The color is right out of Dexter’s Laboratory from the show on Cartoon Network. It’s wild!
The color is caused by a combination of hydrogen sulphide gases and ferrous (iron) salts that filter through from the champagne pool and sit in suspension in the water refracting the light.
While many of the surrounding pools bubble and steam, this one is a very normal 57° degrees Fahrenheit, not at all unusual for lakes and oceans around NZ. The key difference here is it has a pH level of 2, making it very acidic. This pool will vary in colors, being brighter on sunny days and duller on cloudy days. We captured it in full sun.
Just opposite the Devil’s Bath was another crater with more mud bubbling up.
We missed the Lady Knox Geyser as it’s only once a day. It happened before we arrived. It’s a forced geyser set to go off versus the natural ones we saw at Te Puia.
We had seen geysers and bubbling thermal mud earlier this week at Te Puia and Hell’s Gate, but even so, the fascination of the earth bubbling up and releasing all this energy is something you can’t ever get tired of witnessing. We stood at the railings at each place around the park and were awestruck by the landscape and what was coming up from the earth’s crust.
We headed out of Wai-O-Tapu and drove south to Lake Taupo. We arrived and were captivated by the massive lake and the towns along it.
Lake Taupo is 29 miles long by 21 miles wide, making it the largest lake in the country and the second largest freshwater lake in Oceania. It’s roughly the size of Singapore and slightly larger than California’s Lake Tahoe.
Taupo is like Yellowstone, a super-volcano. Super-volcanoes are some 1,000 times bigger than a normal volcano. Earth’s last supereruption was Taupo, approximately 27,000 years ago. The present day caldera was created by that eruption called the Oruanui eruption.
Taupo has erupted less violently at least 28 times since then, with the largest and most recent of these events occurring in 232 CE.
A magma chamber is located between three and five miles below the lake floor. Taupo Volcano began erupting about 300,000 years ago.
We checked into our Airbnb and got caught up on the blog. In reading through the host’s notes, we realized that the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, our fifth big walk we planned, was just over an hour away. We had originally booked our guided expedition with Adrift for next Wednesday. The key to this crossing is good weather! The forecast was not looking favorable for Wednesday. It’s calling for rain and possibly snow.
We called the company and tried to change our crossing to tomorrow because the NZ Met Service weather reports showed sunshine this weekend. However, the Saturday tour was fully booked with a university student trip. Sunday was available and to do that it would take a bit of a switch-a-roo to our hotel we booked in the national park and to our Airbnb over in Napier.
Our Napier host gave us the okay to shift our booking a day as did the hotel in the national park. And with that, we called Adrift and confirmed changing our guided crossing to Sunday.
With a fresh new plan, we started to psyche ourselves up for another big walk. We organized our gear and laid out what we were going to wear.
Hungry from all that reworking of our itinerary, we looked up a few places to eat dinner and agreed upon The Vietnamese Joint. It was a very cold night, so pho seemed like the perfect meal to warm us up. It was delicious and the family-run team couldn’t have been more friendly and welcoming.
