You will have gathered by now that I'm trying to have a catchup with postings on an evening described in the Itinerary as 'at your leisure' which really means find your own food since not all hotel evenings include dinner. To be honest I have enjoyed a small meal of dried fruit and nuts acquired along the way washed down with a Heineken Zero beer. I have grown a little tired of evening dinners that comprise a dinner plate size Ribeye steak, beautifully cooked but enough to feed 2 or 3 people. Evidently there are 25million sheep and 7 million beef and dairy cattle in NZ so not surprising the main diet is meat!!
I have completed 14,000 steps (5.7 Miles) today, half of which were completed this morning when we visited the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, a spectacular showcase of New Zealand's most colourful and unique geothermal elements sculpted by thousands of years of geothermal activity. I'm not going to explain all the geological activity that gives rise to the photos. I will do this later when I have more time to research and explain the various phenomena. Safe to say, however, it's all to do with thermal energy which secretes steaming hot water full of various minerals – some good and some not so good to the surface creating all kinds of sink holes and other features. The thermal baths contain lots of silica which acts as an exfoliant as well as kaolin which is good for the skin. The various colours of the pools and secretions are all the result of chemical reactions with the hot water.
At 10.00am we moved swiftly on to The Lady Knox Geyser. This is the only regular erupting Geyser in New Zealand and even this one is 'fed' with a surfactant to break through the oily surface of the Geyser interface deep below ground to fire at 10.15am every day. Today there was an audience of hundreds. Left to its own devices the Geyser would probably only erupt every 3 days and very unpredictably.
The story is that the local site was once used as a prison. Inmates discovered the hot water and decided it would be good for washing and brought soap. They quickly found that the soap interacted with the chemicals erupting through the thermal vents with explosive outcomes, blowing clothes high into the sky!!
Now as part of a National Park the geyser is named after Lady Knox the wife of a former Governor General of New Zealand.
Again, courtesy of some screenshots I can illustrate the eruption, but you will have to wait for the full video.
Finally, we visited Waimangu Volcanic Valley & Hot Springs. The photo is of one of the hot springs that continuously issues from below ground.
An interesting morning followed by a stroll around Rotorua.
So tomorrow we leave for another long drive to Auckland and if can you believe it the last two full days of this tour!!! The journey will be broken by trip aboard the Glenbrook Steam Train to include an afternoon tea prepared on board.
Tomorrow is another 'forage for yourself' dinner so if the tea is substantial enough I will ltry to post again.
Happy Easter!!
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