I'm writing this while sitting in the geothermal hot tab at our hostel in rotorua. We're spending a few days in the central plateau of the North island, a geologically active area with thermal pools, bubbling mud, geysers, and hopefully dormant volcanoes.
We spent the first two nights in taupo, a resort town on a large lake that sits in a crater formed when a volcano blew up some 1800 years ago. We stayed a an Airbnb place with a very nice hostess. When we offered to pay her admission to the Orakei Korako thermal park in exchange for driving us there, she readily agreed.
The guidebook says that the park is "arguably the best thermal area left in NZ". They say "left" because the best one was destroyed in a volcanic eruption in 1886. In any case, it's quite impressive. Water at temperatures from tepid to boiling comes up from the ground and cascades over rocks, leaving mineral deposits in several colors. There are pools of bubbling water in different colors, some with jets that spurt up one or two feet. Steam wafts up around you, and you hear bubbling and gurgling all around.
We spent the first two nights in taupo, a resort town on a large lake that sits in a crater formed when a volcano blew up some 1800 years ago. We stayed a an Airbnb place with a very nice hostess. When we offered to pay her admission to the Orakei Korako thermal park in exchange for driving us there, she readily agreed.
The guidebook says that the park is "arguably the best thermal area left in NZ". They say "left" because the best one was destroyed in a volcanic eruption in 1886. In any case, it's quite impressive. Water at temperatures from tepid to boiling comes up from the ground and cascades over rocks, leaving mineral deposits in several colors. There are pools of bubbling water in different colors, some with jets that spurt up one or two feet. Steam wafts up around you, and you hear bubbling and gurgling all around.
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