Haere mai!
A chilly morning welcomes us: 9°C outside. Our journey
started with a short visit to Lake Rotorua, before farewell to this beautiful
city. It is such a weird feeling to see the entire city full of steam emerged
from the underground, in a public park, or from the drains in front of their houses.
I bet they have been very used to the sulfur smell.
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| Lake Rotorua |
Twenty minutes from Rotorua city is the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland – the NZ
famous geothermal area with many colorful hot springs and the Lady Knox
Geysers. We meant to wake up early this morning was to catch up the eruption of
Lady Knox Geysers on 1015AM. When the staff dropped the surfactant into the
opening vent, just within a minute, a jet of water was erupted out from the
vent and reached up to 10 m high last for 10 min. We were totally amazed by
such magical moment, the eruption of water is mainly due to the heat up of
surfactant by the volcanic activity below.
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| Top left: Lady Knox Geyser; Top right: Wai-O-Tapu entrance; Bottom: Steam grounds |
The entire geothermal park offers three different walking
tracks. We completed all three tracks in 2 and half hours time. The tracks
guide us to the steaming ground, huge volcanic craters and the world famous
champagne pool. It is so diverse, from colorful thermal pools, to active mud
pools. We were stunned by the views. You wouldn’t believe the whole place is
full of steam, sulfur smells but still amazes people how a deadly volcano can
create such colorful, uniquely landscapes.
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| Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland. From Top and follow clockwise: Champagne pool, volcanic craters, highlight green pond and me with the yellow-greenish champagne pool |
After Wai-O-Tapu, we continued our road trip by following
the Thermal Explorer Highway to town of Taupo, which is about 1 hour drive from
Rotorua. Next attraction – Huka Falls,
which are a set of waterfalls on the Waikato River, abruptly narrowly through a
20 m wide volcanic ledge which ultimately creates a powerful and rapidly falls that
drains to the Lake Taupo. It is so powerful that when the water burst out from
the rivers, the entire blue falls sounds like roaring (check out the video!).
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| Huka Falls |
Tonight we checked in at Barcelona Motel at Taupo. Just like Rotorua, this town
is on shore of a volcanic crater-formed lake, and a centre of geothermal, hot
spring and volcanoes.
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| Top: Taupo town; Bottom: Swan and ducks on the Lake Taupo |
The weather was just nice and we had Fish&Chips at
the lakeside, while enjoyed the sunset view across the Lake Taupo.
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| Top: Sunset and Lake Taupo; Bottom: Enjoying the Eurasia's Fish &Chips on the lakeside |
As usual, you hardly find any entertaining nightlife
activity in New Zealand (most shops closed down by 5.30PM), nor to say it is
just a 20,000-populated small town in the country. So what to do after dinner? Sleep early! It is going to be another fun road trip tomorrow.
1 comment:
wow, scenic! love those photos especially the lake ones. wish I could be there someday!
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