Waiotapu – Geysers, mud pools and rotten eggs

As mentioned in the last post, we booked a day trip to Waiotapu (say why-o-tow-poh) which is famous for its geysers, mud pools (largest in NZ) and volcanic rocks and geothermal pools. Another day of holding our noses was ahead; although it was definitely worth it despite my description.

Our tour guide was called Lyndsey and he ran “Bloke with a bus” tours, a nice, down to earth guy who lived in Cardiff during the 1999 Rugby World Cup. He chatted rugby with us – even saying he thought the Welsh were more rugby-mad than Kiwis and gave us a bit of banter.

Our first stop was the mud pools which were pretty cool. They stunk, especially after a loud bubble went up. I think they are formed as rain and surface water soaks the earth and meets with geothermal water underneath surface. I liked them, kind of hypnotising if you watched them for a while; like a lava lamp effect I guess.

The next stop was Lady Knox’s Geyser (humbly named after Lady Knox back in the day by Lady Knox herself) it was discovered by prisoners who then worked at a prison labour camp and they used it to wash their clothes before putting soap inside to shoot their clothes into the air for fun (no sky TV for prisoners in those days, although I’d probably find it amusing if I did that to my clothes too). The geyser goes off every day at 10:15…amazing you say, not really, it’s set off at that time by a warden who piles soap into the chimney of the geyser. The eruption was good though, the water shot pretty high into the air…what you’d expect from a geyser.

The main stop however, was Waiotapu itself. There are 25 attractions within the park complex as you walk around a figure of eight loop. Despite the smell the place was cool. We saw so many weird and wonderfully coloured geothermal pools; from clear blue with orange perimeter, to neon green (yes neon green). Although our cameras couldn’t actually catch the full effect of the colours (caused by complex chemical reactions far beyond my comprehension and certainly beyond my ability to put into words) I’m sure you’ll agree that the pools are pretty cool.

I know I went on about the smell, but we really enjoyed Rotorua and Waiotapu and we wished we had another day (at least) there. The people we met were really friendly, the town was relaxed and pretty and I actually found the fact that the locals were so blasé about steaming hot geothermal pools forming in their gardens, Parks and pavements really funny.