Geothermal Wonderland

                When you drive through Rotorua at night, or during the winter when it is cold, you see towers of white steam rising up sporadically along its landscape. This is due to the geothermal activity in the area creating scalding hot pools of water, bubbling mud pits, and venting fumerals. These geothermal wonders are not strictly confined to the tourist parks, they are everywhere! Nowhere else in the world is a city built directly on top of a hot spot in the earth’s crust; in places like Iceland and Hawaii, the cities are nearby, but not built upon the most active areas. Rotorua is different to say the least; here you can drink a pint and watch mud bubble up behind pub in the carpark, and children can play on swing sets sitting next to steaming fissures of sulfur.  

                Despite its abundance in places to access geothermal activity, one place stands out as a must see – Wai-O-Taipu Thermal Wonderland. We got here just as it was opening and had the whole place practically to ourselves! By 9:30 the tour buses begin arriving and tourist start streaming into the park to stake out a spot in front of the manmade geyser that goes off every morning at 10:15; we avoided this area all together. Who wants to see a fake geyser when you can walk around a looped 3km path that takes you to see real thermal wonders?!?

                Tripadvisor named the Champagne Pool, “One of the 20 most surreal places in the world,” and for good reason. This pool has a caution cone orange color lip around it with peridotite green waters at its center. Steam is continually rising off of the water because it is more than 200c, so it’s only possible to capture a photo when a sudden wind blows the steam away for a brief period of time. Some of the water from Champagne Pool spills over into Devil’s Bath and mixes with the sulfur to form an eerie toxic sludge green colored pool of water. There are many other wonders here not only in the form of pools, but in the form of craters, mounds, caves, cliffs, geysers (naturally occurring every 2-36 hours hence the scheduled fake one for the tourists), mud pots, terraces, and waterfalls. To walk the whole park takes about 75 minutes but if you are a geology nerd or photography buff you may find yourself staying longer to take it all in.   

                Don’t forget to stop at the mud pool just outside of the park on your right side as you are leaving to get back onto the main road. The pops, plops, bloops, splushes, and gurgling of the mud will have you giggling for sure. I bet it would be a great place to take kids because the mud is so active and fun to watch; just be sure not to let them chase a Pokémon into the pool because after all this is boiling hot mud being flung around. If you’d like to take some mud home with you I’d advise not collecting any of your own here but purchasing some of the Wai-O-Tapu mud beauty products back at the gift shop to avoid third degree burns.