Thursday 17 May 2012

Wai-O-Tapu......part 1......




Our next stop on our journey up the North Island was Wai-O-Tapu Scenic Reserve......about half way between Taupo and Rotorua......the most amazingly weird and colourful landscape......it was very easy to imagine we'd been abducted by aliens and deposited on their planet.....




All the craters and natural geothermal formations had been named......often with some reference to the inferno of the underworld......from whence the devil resides.....




The yellow colouring comes from a sulphur vent blowing up from inside the earth.......Little Lad and Little Miss found the rotten egg smell of the sulphur rather repugnant......



Devil's Home




The Devil's Ink Pots


The Devil's Inkpots





The Artist's Palette is like just that.....a seemingly flatish, artist's palette shape with a whole range of colours as if an artist had just plopped his paints into little puddles ready to paint the landscape.......


Artist's Palette


Artist's Palette - left


Artist's Palette - right




Part of the Artist's Palette is the Champagne Pool.....so called because of the millions of tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide.....can you see them.....constantly bubbling up to the surface from a steep sided crater 62m deep inside the Earth, formed by a hydro-thermal eruption 700 years ago......


Champagne Pool


And that isn't mist....or smoke......it's steam......rising from the water of the pool which enters through a deep conduit at about 230 and cools within the pool to about 74.....


Champagne Pool


The vivid orange colour comes from the presence of arsenic and antimony sulphur compounds rich in minerals including gold and silver......


Champagne Pool



On the other side of the boardwalk from the Artist's Palette, looking all the world like a salt flat is the Primrose Terrace.......which is formed from the water of the Champagne Pool......


Primrose Terrace



As we walked around this amazingly weird and wonderful thermal wonderland.....up gentle hills that we didn't really realise we were going up......and down into narrow valleys.....we also wandered through ancient kanuka and manuka forests.....





and forests of pinus radiata.......





which gave us a brief welcome respite from the hot sun bearing down on us......which, combined with the heat rising from the depths of the Earth......created a veritable heat trap......





and hanging high above us in the pine forests were huge bundles of foliage......for what reason, we knew not why.....but they looked like giant Christmas baubles suspended for the festive season.....




At this point Little Lad and Little Miss had had enough of the "stinky eggy smell" that gently pervaded the air......and Grandpa's worn out knee was really aching.....so with Grandma G they left Big Lad, Big Miss and myself to continue the bigger loop, while they took the shorter loop back to the beginning.....to eat iccream......and await for our return......



-xxx-










1 comment:

  1. Wow, what an amazing place! I am wanting to visit there more and more now because of your pics!

    Hope you are well and life is good!

    Have a super week!

    xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    ReplyDelete