We got up early to start our trip to Rotorua. We headed through beautiful scenery on the trip down. I have never seen the clouds so low and so beautiful before, no wonder NZ is called the land of the long white cloud. We arrived at Wai O Tapu at 10:00 and raced inside to get our tickets so we could drive the 5 minutes down the road to get to the geyser by 10:15. The Lady Knox Geyser is a proper geyser which goes off naturally. however everyday at 10:15 they add chemicals to it to start a reaction. The geyser can shoot up to 15m in the air. It was very impressive.
After the geyser we headed back to the main part of Wai O Tapu. The amazing thing is even driving there you can random bits of smoke from cracks in the earth, really amazing to see. We started the walk around Wai O Tapu, it was very smelly, but the view was worth it We walked past bubbling pools and mud and steam was everywhere. It was an surreal sight and again I do not think the pictures do it justice. Anthony does have some that do. The colour of the rock depends on what chemical reactions are happening. Really interesting.
When we got to the artists palette it was beautiful the whole lake is coloured with steam rising off it and you can walk across it on a small board walk. After that it was the champagne pool which sits at about 75 degrees at surface temperature and up to 230 degrees from under the ground.The red lip around the lake is beautiful. We also got to see where birds lay eggs about the steam so that they don’t need to sit on them.
We finished our circle of the park and then headed off. It is hard to explain how amazing and beautiful these natural sulfur pools and bubbling mud pits are we really enjoyed our time here despite the smell.
Our next stop was the Skyline gondola. We took the gondola up to the top and were rewarded with the beautiful views over Rotorua. We had a pizza for lunch in the cafe and then went and looked in the Jelly Belly shop. They had art work made out of Jelly Belly’s as well as all the different flavours.
Next was the luge. We went down 3 times, and completed the scenic route, intermediate route and the advanced route. I fell off on the advance loop as it was really fast but all in all it was really fun. We headed back on the skyline gondola and tried to get a private spa at the Polynesian Spa but they were all booked out. So we headed back for a quite night. I wish we had more time in Rotorua what an amazing place.
Caves and Hobbition tomorrow.