White Island Tour

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Plenty » Whakatane
February 11th 2008

Published: February 24th 2008

Today was to be my tour of the island that the Maori people call Whakaari (White Island to you and me), approximately 29 miles North into the Pacific Ocean from Whakatane. I went to bed the night before with a heavy cloud cover in Whakatane, thinking that once we got to the island the following morning (and the tour for the following morning was confirmed at 7pm the night before, taking weather in... Read Full Entry

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Doug Gschwind

Welcome to my travel blog. Thus far, I have shared a few of my recent trips, some highlights below : 1) Japan, Sep 2014. With the allure of a very foreign culture to me, non-English speaking, Hiroshima, Tokyo, Shinkansen (bullet trains), Tsukiji fish market, and Sumo wrestling, it was time for a two week break from life and traveled to Japan for the second half of September. Wow, what an amazing place, just loved every minute I spent there exploring. 2) On assignment in Berkeley, CA (Sep 2008 - Apr 2009). I explored the San Francisco Bay area in some detail during the weekends I was there ... full info

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Filled in secondary crater

More cool looking terrain.

Secondary Crater

All filled in and hushed up ... for now.

Looking Back

Here, I am looking from the secondary crater out to the secondary Bay for island landings. The secondary Bay is tougher to manage though as they can only land about 3 people (vs. 10) per inflatable trip.

Looking back to point of entry on island

Note the helicopter that has just taken off.

More Fumarole Activity

This time towards the East side of the island.

More Fumarole Activity

Some good bits of Sulfur yellow in there.

Same Fumaroles zoomed in

More of the same here.

Most active Fumarole

From across the way.

More lighter colored rock

Should have tried to get my hands close to that rock. However, we were instructed to stay on the tour path, which did not come close to those "hotter" areas at all. Probably with good reason.

Yet another Fumarole

More yellow...

Mud Pot/Fumarole

Our guide did mention that the bubbling in this area wasn't due to boiling or temperature, just gas escaping up through the mud/liquid.

Small Fumarole

We put our hand in front of this vent. If you held your hand there for a full second, am sure it would have gotten quite hot. Some steam in that exhaust as well as you had moisture on your hand afterward.

Bubbling Mud

Caught in the act ...

Less active area of the bubbling mud

Still part of that rather large opening though.

More Lunar Landscape

Just damn desolate and not life inviting.

Looking toward primary Crater again

More other worldly looking terrain.

More Lunar Landscape

More of the same.

Northern side of secondary Bay

That water was very Blue in color.

Southern side of Secondary Bay

More of the same.

Results of pick axe Sulfur mining from years past

You can see the rather irregular edge in the middle of the photo due to previous Sulfur mining efforts. The Sulfur was mined for the purposes of making fertilizer, many years ago.

On the way to the old Factory

The old Factory was used for Sulfur mining.

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