New Zealand -April 21st. Rotorua to Turangi Thermal activity day.

Today we travelled from Rotorua to Turangi.

The first stop (after bacon and eggs) was the local Hamurana Springs.  The main spring is the deepest natural freshwater spring on the North Island and feeds Lake Rotorua with over 4 million litres of water an hour. The water is amazingly clear and beautiful.   The walk to the main spring is through a beautiful patch of redwood forest along a fairly flat path which I could manage by walking slowly and stopping like an old person at seats along the way.

We could actually see the ducks paddling under the water, and the motion of their clever feet as the cruised around on the water. See the big fish just behind the Swan. 

The green plant was under the water by about a metre or so!! 

We saw a lady running with her three little boys here.  What a great track to train on

Looking up

A classic view of NZ vegetation with the different grasses in the foreground and the redwoods behind. 

I took photos of this interesting yellow balloon as we passed it for the last time.  It appears to be filled with helium and tethered to the ground.  It seems that you can pay to hop in the walkway suspended below the balloon and float up into the sky (for a limited distance) for a view over the lake. Then they must reel you in  again and tie up the balloon until the next suckers come along.

Our view of it up in the sky as we approached

It is tethered again as we drive past.

As we headed south of Rotorua we saw the signpost to Waimangu-the volcanic valley and decided to go and take a look.  This is a tourist spot for a good reason. The volcano near here erupted in June 1886, creating a blank canvas and major changes to the topography.  Two small lakes were covered with one large one (much larger) and the beautiful silica terraces which were already a famous tourist attraction (you could go and soak in varying temperatures of pools) were covered with about 600m of water. There was lava mud covering as far as the eye could see. Since then the revegetation has slowly occurred naturally. 

It is currently at under-storey level, with another 100 years predicted until the full canopy is in place. 

There are many walks around the area, and lots of volcanic activity.  The great thing is that you can also pay for a bus to take you down the hill to the lake, and take a short, flat stroll to a boat, which will take you around the lake.  A great option given our situation. As we strolled from the bus stop to the boat via these amazing dead looking trees. 

They have a form of hairy lichen growing on them which we have also seen in other spots on this trip.

There was steam coming off of the side of the lake, so Trevor carefully tested the temperature.   He said he could put his hand in, but he wouldn't want to leave it there.

There is our boat waiting for us.

It is strange to see steam coming out of the ground and to feel and see boiling water naturally occurring. 

They have poisoned the pine trees which are an introduced species. This means that they will die eventually and leave the native bushland. It is a bit  weird to see light grey pine trees amongst the other trees. 

There is an island in the lake which may eventually become a bird sanctuary. There are no predators on it due to the way it was formed. 

It is strange seeing these clouds of white coming off of the land.  It would always mean a fire where we come from, and we find that is ingrained in our thinking. It twists our thinking to consider that this may mean anything else. 

You would swear someone had a campfire going on this beach

Whole cliffs of steaming clouds

This little fellow greeted us along the path.  Pretty isn't he?  

 We headed out from here and on our way, but it wasn't long before we were stopping in to see some hot mud pools.

The hot mud is one of my favourite memories from when I visited NZ as a 14 year old. I was fascinated with them then, and I found that I could still happily watch them for hours if given the chance. Maybe it was just as well that my time was restricted a little.

There was a neat little walk around a couple of areas (for free) where we could watch wet and not so wet mud doing it's thing.

I took some videos of this, but the format can't download here (whatever!!!).

Here is a bit of an idea but you can never really capture the wonderful mesmerizing ploppiness in a still shot. It really deserves a poem, but I haven't written one.

We continued for another 100 or so km (taking some somewhat suspect deviations due to our Garmin navigator preferences for backroads) and arrived at our home for the next week at about 4 pm.  Not bad. 

This lodging is part of a "resort" with very limited facilities and near a main road. But it has everything we need, and we took a walk around town (just in case the ankle needed a rest) to figure out the most likely food spots. In the next week we can choose from the local supermarket, chinese, fish and chips (two options) , two bakery cafes, pizza, Indian,  italian, high tea at the chateau and at least 2 other restaurants. I don't think we will be losing weight.