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Published: January 17th 2015
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The molten smell drifts through the crisp morning air as dozens of tourists surround a small mound bellowing a small stream of white smoke from the top. I sit on a cold step, with my arms firmly shoved deep within my pockets to warm up my fingers as I am struggling to move them. It feels ridiculously cold to the point where the moment my breath escapes from the warmth of my mouth, it creates an easily visible cloud of steam. Here I sit wondering whether if this was the best decision I have ever made.
The day started out rather normally I was waiting for a bus to arrive so I could start a tour that for some reason I decided to purchase even though I have been to the Wai-O-Tapu Wonderland before. I guess I had vague recollections of what the park was like and wanted to re-establish some connections and create some new memories about what Wai-O-Tapu is like. A little more than 5 minutes late, a small, white mini-van/bus rocks up and herds those of us who are waiting on the side of the road in front of Peter Pan's Travel into the bus
like the proverbial flock of Sheep we are. It turned out that Peter Pan's was not the first leg of the 'flocking' process. Already there were a couple people on their,a couple who for the life of me I cannot remember where the hell they were from. Also there was an attractive English woman on the bus, Sarah. She was a lovely young girl from Sheffield, who after a year studying in Australia had decided to venture across the ditch and see exactly what New Zealand had to offer. After finding spare seats, which wasn't hard as the bus was predominantly empty at this stage, we continued on to a third pick up location, where several other tourists boarded the bus, including two Austrians, whom I got to know rather well later on in the trip. I didn't have much interactions with them on the tour, so I will leave off anything about them until a later post.
The journey commenced through the main streets of Rotorua as the bus driver over the speaker system began to talk about what seemed like everything he knew about Rotorua and the surrounding area. It was a thorough and interesting
commentary about how the geyser was discovered, why North American Pine trees dominate the area and how potentially dangerous Rotorua actually is (Rather it turns out as it is located ion a major Volcanic plateau). After 15 minutes we arrive at the first destination, 'a little ahead of schedule' apparently and we get shown the largest mud pool in New Zealand, which was rather cool to see, but I am highly doubtful that it was an added extra because we were ahead of schedule. But the predominant reason we stopped in this location is for one of the areas main attractions, the famous Lady Knox Geyser. Sitting in the middle of rather prehistoric like terrain. I don't mean that in the sense of the area is filled with dinosaurs, which would be awesome. Instead I mean it thanks to the plant life that can only be best described as the perfect backdrop for a Jurassic Park movie. But saying that the barron, white rocks that makes up the Geyser, in contrast to the heavily forested region that surrounds it creates an extra sense of awe, does create an amazing atmosphere for the impending spectacle, which does enhance an even more
impressive. The Geyser does spurt (for lack of a better word) at precise times thanks to environmentally safe engineering of the Geyser, by adding 'chemicals' to ensure the eruption happens at pretty precise times instead of at random, which would make the spectacle more incredible (for luck of being there at the right time), but also make the situation less enviable, because you would have to remain near the geyser until it happens and apparently it can be up to 36 hours between 'show-times.' Believe me when I say that it would be somewhat a boring wait.
After waiting for an extra 20 odd minutes for the Geyser to show any signs of life in what can only be described as the freshest and coldest morning I have ever experience, I did feel weak for a moment about thinking this until Sarah did also suggest that she thought it was cold as well. Turns out the South Australian who has only been in minus degrees a handful of times in his life, is a lot tougher than dealing with the cold than he initially thought 😊 But after the Geyser finally put on it's amazing spectacle, which
was easily was easily worth the wait. The group began to file into the Wonderland, which although the name does strike connotations for me with the infamous book of Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll, it does venture away from that connotation heavily. But the name of Wonderland does seem rather apt as well because the visual spectacle of many of the upcoming lakes and 'vents,' does at least in my mind, justify why it is a wonderland. I could go into tremendous depth about each and every sight, but that would unfortunately become rather stale, boring and really repetitive. So instead I will just give a shortened, abridged version.
The smell was the cliche, that I explained in my article on Rotorua, being that of the lingering of rotten eggs, but that is to be expected because of the sulphur that makes the volcanic plateau famous. The views are incredible from vast, steaming lakes that have tinges of soo many different colours, from a sickly green, to a vibrant bright orange and even a dull light yellow. The unusual colours certainly adds to the spectacle, but for me one lake remains the most absolutely impressive
lake I have ever seen. This is the Champagne Pools, and this gets this title from me simply because of the completeness of the colour. Most of the other pools only have a tinge of the colour, or a small segment, usually an outer circle on the shore front. But with the Champagne Pools, the entire lake is a very striking and eye catching lime green. This was the only memory I had of the park from the first time I visited it over 10 years ago, and certainly this will continue to be the lasting impression of the geo-thermal park that will remain with me for years to come.
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