Rotorura and Wai O Tapu

So, after a 3 day marathon in the skies and skipping Valentines Day over the international date line, we drove from Auckland to Rotorura, a town in the middle of the North Island. This town is famous for its active geo-thermal parks and Maori village.
Arrived at Wai O Tapu (Maori word for "Sacred Waters") geothermal park and decided to do the 1h 30min walk around the park. Lots to see!! (http://www.geyserland.co.nz/)
And it stunk like sulphur the whole time...but well worth it.

These were some of the collapsed craters that are around the area. The underground acid collapses the ground into these wierd formations. These were called the Devil's Ink Pots.

This was the lookout from a hill that looks over parts of the parl (the neon green is the Devil's Bath at the end, and the white is the opal pool)

Some of the neat colours in the park. Wierd growths and bright white dried parts...

Baby chick in the acidic pools of the Frying Pan Flat. These birds, called pied stilts eat the bugs that are in the water, and apparently aren't bugged by the acid in the water.

And the biiig momma that was nearby. Also, really neat story about the birds in New Zealand. The first indigenous people (the Maori) only arrived 800 years ago, and when they landed were the first mammals beside bats on the entire island. Because the birds we only used to predators coming from above such as eagles, they had developed the instinct to stay still under threat. So when the Maori arrived, when they approached birds, they would just stay still and so were easy pickings. (this ended up pretty bad for the Moa-a giant bird like an ostrich- as they were eaten to extinction)
The oyster pool- so named because of its shape.

The champagne pool. The sediments and minerals within this pool create this fantastic coloured area of the park. the Orange is Antimony and iron oxide within the pool. It was created because of an explosion 700 years ago.

More of the cool champagne pool.

The Devil's Bath. The neon green of that pool doesn't really come through in the picture, but it was absolutely blinding.

Me in front of the Devil's bath. (and after 3 days on a plane)

These rock formations are now home to birds who hollow out holes to lay their eggs in. The heat within the rocks incubates the eggs, so they don't have to chill out on their nests all day.


These are the mud pools near the thermal reserve. The air escapes from underground and the mud explodes, sometime to huge heights.

Cool little explosion, and the end of Rotorura.