Thermal explorations in Rotarua

Lake Rotarua and Taco's Tour
We had arranged the obligatory tourist's guide through the thermally active areas of Rotarua and were ready for an 8:30 AM pick up at the front of our pretty dingy Devonwood Manor.

On the dot the vehicle turned up and out bounced "Taco" our guide. A New Zealander with a raggedy moustache (left over from his hippie days I suspect) and an honest smile. Taco is actually an acronym of his first names, the only one of which I managed to catch was Cornelius. Is an acronym of a name a nomacroynm?

Our first stop on the tour round Rotarua was the Waitapu "thermal wonderland", and I can tell you that there are plenty of holes for Alice to chase the rabbit at this place! The area is within a volcanic caldera and susceptible to many shifts in the land. Fumeroles open up to let steam escape all around the scrubland and the plants are well adapted to the heat close by. Gorse bushes and shrubs have evolved (or excrete?) carotene to protect themselves from the heat. It looks like the branches has been sprayed with carrot juice or infested with a copper coloured lichen. As we walked through the park the ground sounds a little hollow. If you stamp your foot it makes a louder thump than you would expect and isn't entirely solid. That's because not far beneath the chalky gravel there are underground caverns of thermal activity. There are craters and holes opening up disgorging boiling mud. Liquid carbon floats on top of the mud slops like the oil slicks on water we all used to create those swirling water-oil paintings in school.

The area is also oil rich, and you see that bubbling up from the cavernous holes around the area (there's even a place called kerosene creek, and you can imagine what that smells like!). Apparently, it would actually be possible, and may be even economical to extract the oil, but I am sure it's not very safe and the area is conserved as it is. To my mind, extracting a flammable fuel from a highly active volcanic area seems a recipe for disaster!

Taco filled us in with facts and figures about the area as we walked around. To me, what was strange was the area, the colour and composition of the soil, the birdlife, the plants were all extremely reminiscent of the gorse and shrubby areas of the New Forest. Reminiscent until you come across another steaming hole and you realise that this is not the same as the solid and ancient ground of back home. But, we were on a schedule (and you'll know why in a moment), so we moved on to the famous "Champagne pools".

Champagne pools
The Champagne pools are named such because of the effervescence. The pools have a constant fizz of small bubbles rising up to the surface. Looking across the pool it looks like a mist is obscuring the view, but this is steam. As a breeze picks up and clears the steam a little you can see a deeper pool that is the source of the mineral rich water being pushed out to the edges of the pond. Imagine a hard boiled egg with the yolk being the deep pool and the white being the shallower parts. The egg analogy only works for the topology and of course, the smell. It was like walking around a chemistry lab after an experiment had gone wrong!

The shallow area of the champagne pool is fringed in a bright orange crust. I am not sure what mineral that causes this, but as you move your gaze away from the rusty edge into the pool there's an incredible contrast. The shallow water of the pool is a deep green colour, with the effevescence giving that "champagne" quality. On the limits of the shallow area there are seagulls nesting. It seems insane with the temperatures and incredibly toxic fumes, but the birds seem well adjusted. They've built their stick nests up out of the pool and incubate their eggs there. The heat is good for incubation, but any further toward the heat and the eggs would become hard boiled!

The champagne pools overflow slowly down a hill, depositing sillica. The beige, shiny silica slowly dries as it gets further away from the pool. This creates shallow steps down the gentle slope of the hill and, in colour and texture reminded me of stalagtites. The flow down the hill is glacial in pace and looks very much like a glacier. This was the same process that created the famous pink steps (which were destroyed by a massive volcanic erruption in 1876).

Devil's pool
Towards the end of our wander around the thermal area we watched pure, crystal clear water flow into a large pool called "Devil's pool". The minerals in this pool turn the colour of the water luminscent yellow. It's as if someone had poured bright die into the pool; it stinks too!

Don't get me wrong, the thermal park isn't the only thermal area in Rotarua district. In fact, at any point you can stop along the road and see steam being forced out through holes in the ground. Disconcernting if one of those fumeroles open up in your house!

Lady Knox Geyser
If you've been to Rotarua, you will have certainly seen Lady Knox geyser. This geyser was the reason for our tight schedule. At 10:15am, every day, the geyser will erupt (is that the correct terminology for geysers?!). Naturally, geyers have a periodicity; obviously, a reservoir of water will fill and be heated up, generating pressure. At some point the pressure needs to be released, and the super hot water gushes up through the hole at the base of the geyser. However, Lady Knox geyser gets a bit of a helping hand by department of conservation (or is it the department of tourism). They put soap flakes down the hole into the geyser. This breaks the surface tension of the water holding the presurised, hot water in place, and the geyser blows! 10:15am we watched the hot water spew 10 metres into the sky. It sounds exactly as you would imagine, hot water spewing through a small hole.

Trip on the Lake ... forgotten the name
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Green and Blue lakes
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The Landing on lake Tarawera
Our last stop of the day was at the beautiful lake Tarawera. Taco had arranged for lunch at "The Landing" where the food was pretty good and the mussels were the largest I have ever seen (seafood mussels that is). Taco assured me that the mussels were reasonably small, but the shells were almost the size of a hand and the flesh of one mussel looked to be as much as that of three or four measly morsels from back home.

It was during dinner that we learned of Taco's past. His parents were Dutch and journeyed to New Zealand (the father first, later followed by his mother). Taco himself, up until a couple of years ago, was a self-confessed "New Zealand hippie" making jewelery and taking up extras roles in films. When they were looking for a dishevelled skinny guy - Taco was the man. You can see him with David Bowie in "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence"!

A long, late lunch, a couple of glasses of New Zealand Savvy, and we headed home. Back to the delights of Devonwood Manor!