Wai-O-Tapu

Thursday, early rise again. We want to go to Wai-O-Tapu to see the Lady Knox Geyser. It blows at 10.15 am and we want to make a walk in the Redwood Forest first. We arrive at the forest at half past 8. You can walk on hanging bridges through the trees but when we want to buy tickets we are told that it opens at 9 am. It takes more than a half hour to walk it and we have to drive to the Lady Knox as well. That makes the schedule for today too tight. There is an alternative, not as exciting as the bridges but we still can make a walk through the Redwood Forest. It’s for free and we can go immediately. The trees are really red and very high. It is a nice quite walk, after the noisy street from last night. The only thing you hear, very loud, are the cicadas. We can’t see them but hear them very well. It is a nice relaxing walk and we are back in the car at 15 to 9.
We arrive at Wai-O-Tapu half an hour later. There is a queue at the entrance, another one for the tickets and one more to drive back to the Lady Knox Geyser to park the car. It is very busy and we hear all kind of languages, we hear Russian, German, Japanese, Dutch (not us). A Maori introduces the story of the Geyser, how it was discovered over a century ago by prisoners who had to work there. They liked the hot pool it was back then and wanted to wash their clothes in it. When they laid the clothes in it to wash the soap of, the geyser erupted 20 meters high. The prisoners run away and the clothes were spread over the scenery. Nowadays they still trigger it by adding soap. That closes of the pressure chambers and the pressure gets so high that the smelly water is blow out. The soap goes in and almost immediately it begins to bubble. The bubbles are getting higher and then it bursts out. 20 meters of very hot boiling water, going down a bit and going up again, till it nearly stops. Back in the car to the other parking lot. We go in the park. A volcanic wonderland. There are three walks, extending each other, so you can make a choice what you want to do. We want to see it all, since we are here. You have to stay on the path, the ground is unstable. Smoking is prohibited, the volcanos smoke for us. The smell isn’t very nice, sulphur. We see collapsed kraters with names like Devil’s home. Mud pools that bubble loudly. Al kinds of colours at the edges of the kraters and pools, green, orange, yellow, red brown, black, purple and white. The different colours mean different metals or salt bubbling out the volcano. There is a pool named painters pallet, it has all the colours in it. The Devils Ink pot is black and we see a pool shaped like an oyster. There is a lot of smelly damp , especially at the Champagne pool. I think they call it like that because of the bubbles in the water, the surface is 74°C and down below, about 60 meters, it is 300°C. don’t want to put my hand in there. The Bridal Vail Falls don’t show a lot of water but it is white and some light other colours an there is a bit of water floating. There is so much to see, I can’t tell it all. The last one is the Devil’s Bath a very poisoned looking colour green. By the time we are back at the car, we smell like matchboxes, even our skin.
On our way to Turangi we pass Taupo, but we don’t stop there, we make a stop at the lakeside and enjoy the water for a while. In Turangi we booked the Anglers Paradise Motel. A lovely place and so quit after al the city noise, except for our neighbours, the cicadas. You don’t see them but they are loud! And they brought their whole family. Lucky for us, when it gets dark they stop. We enjoy a meal at the local pub.