North Island and the “HOT property”

We caught the ferry from Picton and travelled thro Queen Charlotte Sound anyway..and the clouds obligingly lifted so that we could see the wonderful mountains and bays of the whole Sound Region. Three hours later we sailed thro the heads of Wellington; a very pretty city that seems to hang off the surrounding mountains and set around a huge bay. We stayed the first night at a small campground on one of the bays, then went to the small village of Upper Hutt to see some friends. The Te Paupa museum of Wellington was fascinating as it has the only preserved Giant Squid in the world..a massive creature about 3 meters long and eyes as big as soccer balls. The hooked tentacles could rotate and penetrate its victim to grab a hold. There was also a simulated earthquake room and a whole section devoted to quakes, volcanoes and the precarious existence of the New Zealanders. I guess if you HAVE to live life on the edge ( ‘scuse the pun) you may as well make a tourist attraction out of it...

The countryside of North Island is very pretty...forested, rural and hilly. Again we took a short cut to the west Coast and it twisted and turned and climbed until we came out on the precipice of the most amazing mountain side with sheer cliffs and views forever...another surprise!

That night we stayed at a free campsite in small coastal town and then drove to the highest mountain in North Island....( in fact three active volcanoes together called the Tongariro Nat Park). As we drove towards the mountain we glimpsed its imposing snow clad peak rising above the clouds, and then the rain and mist started so we saw it no more! To drive up to the top ski area is like driving on a moonscape. Obvious signs of its last eruption in 1996 were everywhere..boulders strewn across a lava encrusted landscape, solidified lava flows looking like the frosting dripping off a cake. Soon all that would be covered in a blanket of snow when the ski season began. Reluctantly we decided to leave the area because the rain had set in for a few days and we could not see anything anyway.

We drove to the Lake Taupo area .This lake is actually a crater lake created by a massive volcanic eruption a few thousand years ago. The bang blew a 660 sq km hole in the earth which sent ash flying all over the world and felt as far as China. It’s a huge and beautiful stretch of water, full of trout and all manner of water sports, surrounded by volcanoes and forest clad mountains. We found a small caravan park on the edge of the lake outside the city of Taupo which had its own Geothermal pools for guests. There were 3 of them ( as well as spas) and they were graded “simmering” 40 deg, “rapid boiling” at 42 deg and “thermo” at 44 plus deg...as Paul says, enough to hard boil eggs....sorry!

Nearby were some free Thermal walks in the little village. It was surreal to walk around the earth which was literally boiling mud, hissing steam, and bubbling water in every nook and cranny..the whole area was surrounded by jets of steam coming out on pavements, drains and odd holes in the ground. It really made me wonder as I walked around the little neighbourhood that none of the homes had many walls or gates , yet there were boiling mud holes in vacant lots, hissing steam vents and HOT ground on the pavements, and fumeroles hissing in every second backyard garden..I bet the residents still had to make sure their pools were fenced for the kiddies tho???!!!! It was also amazing to see the huge thermo power stations and steam rising from pipes and ditches along the way. The whole area along the mids section of North Island is on a very active fault line and is one of the most active, simmering geothermal regions of the world. The mountains were calderas, the many lovely crater lakes had hot springs surrounding them, and wherever you looked there was steam and bubbling mud...a surreal place. Yet the local people obviously thought nothing of it and life went on as usual.

We stayed at a lovely free campsite alongside the main river flowing out of Lake Taupo , the Waikato. The rivers and lakes are so clean and blue, and very fast flowing. Near Lake Taupo was the Huka Falls..most unusual because it is actually the River flowing thro a very narrow Chasm and then falling with tremendous force over an 11 meter drop. The speed and fury of the “horizontal waterfall” in the chasm is just incredible, as are the nearby rapids.

As we drove to Rotorua, the Thermal “capital” of NZ, the countryside was full of jets of steam rising from hillsides, and boiling mud pools along backroads. We decided to stay the night just outside Rotorua at a Geo Thermal Pool resort where you could camp and use the various therapeutic pools of various temperatures and surrounded by exotic ferns...mmmm . It was beautiful because they had designed the Thermal pools with rocks and infinity ledges of different heights and temperatures. The folk there were all very relaxed, when Paul and I tried to talk they all raised a collective eyebrow and then went back to sighing mmmmmm.....Soon we were following suit as we soaked before and after dinner, with twinkling lights shimmering off the steamy pools. BUT, this was the most surreal sight we have seen so far! Next to the resort was a boiling river.....The source of the river bubbles up from underground at 55 litres a second and at 98 deg C...the whole area is full of steam and boiling rapids. There are rare ferns growing in the area and fungi/moss thingys that are the beginning of ancient life forms. To get the water cool enough to bathe in they have to run it over a series of cooling ponds, and sprinkle the water over waterfalls...and even then it is HOT! The whole area was covered with steam and we could hear the boiling and hissing right next to the pools. We spent the night listening to the River boiling away and thinking about the fault line we were blithely resting on stretching from White Mountain on one side ( an active marine Volcano,) and the three active volcanoes on the other side.....