Today had the strangest start to any day of the trip so far, but things improved greatly from that point.
After breakfast I drove 30 minutes to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, with no expectations whatsoever as to what I might encounter. They advertise that the Lady Knox Geyser erupts daily at 10:15am, which had me confused as to whether it was an actual geyser, and if so then how it could erupt at the same time each day. As it turns out, the geyser was accidentally discovered by convicts from a labor camp who saw a hot pool, decided to wash in it, and when the water got a bit soapy it induced a geyser eruption, scaring the hell out of them and causing them to run buck naked back to their camp. Today, following the lead of those convicts, park employees walk out to the geyser each morning at 10:15 while surrounded by an amphitheater full of tourists, dump a bag of soap into the cone to induce an eruption, and then begin playing music over speakers as the eruption commences with tons of soap bubbles bursting forth from the geyser like it’s a kid’s science fair experiment. Eventually the eruption turns from soapy to steamy to hot water shooting fifty feet into the air, but bubbles continue to float through the surroundings the entire time. I suppose it’s the only way to show people a predictable geyser eruption, but it still felt very, very odd. Apparently the geyser usually erupts for about an hour, but today the show lasted only about a minute, which made the experience even more of an inauspicious start to the day.
After the geyser eruption I headed over to the park’s trails, and they turned out to be much, much more normal than expected after the earlier soapy spectacle. The thermal features were all totally natural, they had a bunch of impressive mud pots and silica terraces, there were hot springs of all sorts of vibrant colors, really good and informative signage about the Taupo supervolcano, and I spent a very pleasant two hours roaming the area.
Things improved further with an afternoon journey to the Waimangu Volcanic Valley, an area formed after the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera. The visit is via trails through rainforest, leading past features like Frying Pan Lake, the world’s largest hot spring, and it was a nice hike with very few people around. Of particular note, the area was home to the world’s largest geyser from 1900 until 1904. The Waimangu Geyser erupted every 36 hours for 5-6 hours at a time to heights of over 400 meters, which is taller than the Empire State Building. For comparison, the largest active geyser today is Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone, which erupts to a height of 90 meters, while Old Faithful erupts to a height of about 40 meters. As with many thermal features, earthquakes and continuing volcanic activity eventually changed the underground plumbing of the system, and the Waimangu Geyser was declared to be extinct in 1908.
Tomorrow I’m heading to the coast and up to the Coromandel Peninsula. Somehow it’s down to the last ten days in New Zealand, but there’s some diving coming up next week that should make them very memorable days.
Beautiful pictures!