Wai-O-Tapu.....part 2

So Little Lad, Little Miss, Grandpa and Grandma G felt their tummies calling for ice cream......so they high-tailed it back to the Visitors' Centre cafe.....while Big Lad, Big Miss and myself completed the circuit......at the highest point of the trail we were greeted with this view.....

.....and then descended down onto the flats themselves.....where we spotted a family of pied stilts.....

.....can you see the little one in the middle of the picture.....lazily looking here and there for morish morsels to eat.....

The colours splashed all around were so bright and vivid.....

......as if someone had taken a tube of paint and just squirted and dabbed at random......

Sulphur Cave

.....or beautifully opaque and milky......like this serene looking "Oyster Pool"......

Oyster Pool

.....but don't be fooled by the serenity though.....there were warnings everywhere not to step off the boardwalk because the temperatures of the pools and surrounding mud could easily be 100℃.....even though they looked so innocent.....

At the base of this rock formation, bubbling out of one of the little pools, was the Wai-O-Tapu Geyser......

.....we could see the preceding bubbles erupt on the surface.....so we waited and watched.....walked on.....and wandered back......but alas, it was not playing fair.....and did not blast a vast jet of water into the air for our entertainment and enjoyment......

After walking around the far edge of the flats, we finally rounded a corner and were met by the end of the pathway and a view to take our breaths away......Lake Ngakoro......with Mt Tauhara ......a dormant volcano which reaches 1088m above sea level....and whose name, according to Maori legend means alone or isolated......in the far distance......

Lake Ngakoro & Mt Tauhara

The landscape was so diverse.....one minute we were looking out upon wide open flats.....the next we were looking down huge great chasms and vents.....

Inferno Crater

....like the Inferno Crater.......

.....and the Birds Nest Crater.......

....or upon lakes of every tint and hue.....like this one......

.....which wouldn't look out of place bubbling and boiling away in a witch's cauldron.....

...or this two-toned pool.....

Wai-O-Tapu......Sacred Waters....was certainly a colourful and stunning geothermal wonderland to explore......

Having drained our water bottles......Big Lad, Big Miss and myself arrived back at the Visitor Centre hot and parched.......and most definitely looking forward to a refreshing drink and a delightfully cooling ice cream......but we were out of time.......we were hurriedly ushered into the minivan and driven off to our motel to get showered and changed in time to be collected for our Tamaki Maori Village experience.....an evening of cultural enlightenment and dinner.

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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 ice cream......and await for our return......

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