The night before we heard from other travelers that it is possible to bath in thermal water in the river so in the morning we went to dip in the hot water. The hot river flowed into the cold river so you could decide how warm or cold you wanted to be. As it was a cool morning it was nice to have a warm bath.
Rahel and Robert were the first to be in the water.
After the little dip Robert and I went to the Wai-O-Tapu thermal park, Rahel and Taylor decided not to go.
We read that every day at 10:00 am one specific geyser erupts in the park. We were wondering how this could be. We surely found out soon. But if you want to go there one day maybe you don't want to read the below story, to find out yourself.
This is how the geyser looked like when we arrived.
The ranger (the son of the owner of the land) came with a microphone to explain what will happen or what happened. Before the area was a tourist attraction there was a prison and the inmates were asked to do the laundry. As they were lazy, they found a hole with hot water and used the hot water to do the washing. They also were too lazy to put the water in buckets and cleaned the items in the bucket, no they just put the washing powder in the hole and started their work. The next thing they knew they got a big fright as the hole started to be noisy and then the water with all the clothes sprayed few meters high out of the hole in all directions. The inmates did not use it again for cleaning laundryso but they continued to put washing powder inside just for their entertainment. They also build bricks around the hole and the geyser naturally created a layer above the bricks so it looks like a mini version of a volcano.
Every day a ranger also places a environmental friendly powder inside the geyser to create the same chemical reaction for all the visitors. They can only do it once a day as the chambers below need to fill up with water.
Here the first reaction, the foaming.
Here the geyser spraying the water out for about 10 minutes.
After that we were driven back to the main park about 5 minutes from the location of the geyser.
We saw more bubbling mud pools.
Lakes with all kind of colors and steaming from the heat.
Most animals in New Zealand are birds they only have a few mammals and most of them were introduced to the country like the possum they like to get rid of, as they kill their native birds and is protected in Australia.
The water here is so hot that you can see the bubbles it is literally boiling.
The chemicals from the volcanic action changes the color of water.
Robert drove us to the next location Taupo were we had lunch with a beautiful view over the lake. After we went to a coffee shop to have a lovely cuppa and check on the Internet.
The night we spent at a recreation area very close the Taupo city center. We put our tent next to the crystal clear river, there was no charge for camping, we loved it.
If you would like to see more pictures please click on the follow link: Wai-O-Tapu
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