I was driving south on route thirty three towards Rotorua, I had been gaining height for a while now and my car was revving over a thousand times more than normal every minute just to maintain the one hundred kilometre per hour speed limit. Then as the roads started to level out it struck me, the awful stench of rotten eggs. This influx of hydrogen sulphide was sure sign that I had arrived in the geothermal area which Rotorua lies right in the middle of. The smell persisted unabated all the way to Rotorua, where it became even more potent. Buildings often concentrated this smell where upon walking into places like supermarkets I was often hit, as if by a blast wave from an explosion, by this sulphurous smell, in short the smell of rotten egg was inescapable and ubiquitous. Thankfully it is the type of thing that you can get used to, phew.
(Lake Rotorua from Rotorua)
The next morning I decided to walk around Rotorua so I could see what the town was like and to say that I have actually ‘been there’. In my lonely planet guide there was a walk through the town which took in the geothermal park, the waterfront and some historic buildings. I headed off along the route of the thick black line on the map but soon found that navigating a path through a grid based town where each road is most distinguished by their different selection of similar looking shops (yeah, road signs too) is not simple so after a few wrong turns here and there I arrived at the park. This park is unusual because it lies in the middle of the town but it is contains a large number of hot pools and bubbly mud, all of which inject the lovely hydrogen sulphide smell into the air. The whole length of the park was full of the most unusual features, rocks sending out plumes of steam, small pools of bubbly mud bubbling like water in a boiling kettle, medium sized pools of bubbly mud making noises such as blub..... blub..... blub..... and then there were large swimming pool sized pools shrouded in a fog of war as the surface water evaporated. There really were all kinds of alien features in a small area, all of them enclosed within overgrown fenced off enclosures in what otherwise would appear to be a totally normal and well kept grassy park.
(Lake in Rotorua park)
The path then headed onto the lake front and I was very glad I wasn’t driving when passing one junction after seeing the road sign pertaining to it. It was as if someone in the highways department had imagined a large white dead starfish on a large green sign and thought, that’ll do. I’ve never seen so much visual overload in one sign, I can imagine drivers seeing it and thinking:
“Now did I want the third or ninth turn off?”
Anyway after arriving at the lake front and ambling along for a while the water turned from normal dark and transparent lake water colour to a grey turquoise colour more reminiscent of a flooded Cornish china clay pit and the rotten egg smell took a noticable uptick. It turns out that there is an active geothermal area under this end of the lake causing the change in colour, it also reduces the oxygen to extremely low levels making aquatic biodiversity extremely low here. It does however support a plethora of marine and fresh water birds species. I came across my first New Zealand Scaups, a black duck, which I found to be pretty darn stupid. I arrived on the lake shore which startled a group of them and they began swimming in a frenzied hurry to reach a small island which all but a few Scaups just clumsily swam into, then, in an instant, they all calmed down as if I was never there. Suddenly, a few seconds later, without a movement or noise from me, the frenzy started again, twenty or so Scaup began high pitched importunate sounding calls, more scuffling occurred, it was every bird for itself again as the bungled island landings resumed and then stopped. Maybe two of them discovered they have legs and got onto the island this time but others on the island had jumped off and joined in with the commotion in the water. I watched this cycle happen three or four times, each time marvelling at their waste of effort and clumsiness, what daffy ducks.
(New Zealand Scaup, the only labotomised bird species in the country)
After lunch I headed out to see a number of lakes to the east of Rotorua. I arrived at the first, Blue Lake, and parked next to this tranquil spot surrounded by hills clad in dense native bush, this was a very calm and relaxing place. Until the Jet Ski started. I never quite understood the appeal of what they were doing, I dislike doing anything unnecessary that causes enough noise to irritate the people around me, let alone everyone within several kilometres of me. I tried to understand the purpose of his activities but he only made figure of eights or went in really straight lines as fast as he could, as far as I could tell they were all just playing. Very rarely do so few people get to domineer, harass and spoil such an amazing place for so many people. Soon some people in a speed boat turned up so I took this as a sign to leave, not that I needed any more reason. I drove to a view point at the far side of the lake where the view was far more spectacular, there were sun drenched mountains lying beyond Green Lake which lies adjacent to Blue Lake. I went to the information board to find that blue lake was 20,000 years old, or 2000 as some vandal had altered the sign to say, someone doesn’t like geological ages. At this point the jet ski had stopped, thank god, but the speed boat had speeded across on full power and moored close to where I was and its raucous occupants were playing very loud pop music. I don’t know off hand the OED definition of ‘moron’ but these people would definitely fit it.
(Lake Okareka)
The next lake, Lake Tarawera, was very large and had a backdrop of mountains, this was spectacular, magnificent, awe inspiring and any other such adjective that you can think of. I could definitely understand why throngs of holiday homes were spread along the shoreline. Finally I headed to Lake Okareka where I sat and read a few more pages of Corrupted Science without being interrupted by the activities that defiled Blue Lake earlier, until another jet skier appeared and I departed. But first I was quite surprised at how much of a dent an average sized human makes to the bonnet of a rapidly moving car, thankfully he sank in the lake water quite easily with all those rocks tied to him. Just kidding! He’ll still be riding roughshod over all that is calm and pleasant somewhere. I decided to swap the lakes for the backpackers and retired for the evening.
(Lady Knox geyser)
The next step of my journey was to head to Taupō but to make my journey more interesting I was going to a Wai-O-Tapu, a geothermal park, which contains Lady Knox geyser that erupts at 10:15 every single day. I arrived at the Geyser along with several tens of other people and took a seat in the amphitheatre like seating. As the time ticked down to 10:15 a guide stepped out next to the geyser and explained how some prisoners discovered this geyser when they came to wash their clothes in the naturally warm water here and discovered more than they bargained for. The time now was almost exactly 10:15 and the guide was still standing next to the geyser so potentially about to get soaked, he’d better move quick I was thinking but if he didn’t then I had my camera ready. But then ten fifteen passed by a minute or so and nothing had happed, what was wrong, I was told that it worked like clockwork. The guide then took out a chunk of surfactant, effectively soap, and informed us that this sets the geyser off when he drops it in at 10:15, ah, I got it then. Once started the build up was slow, the water just dribbled over the edge to start with, but soon built up into a several metre high jet of water that lasts anything from a few minutes to over an hour.
(Champaign Pool; Not a place to drop your car keys into.)
The other section of the site was a walk through of a geothermal hotspot, there were many different environments here and it was anything but monotonous, every corner yielded something new, it was great. Many sections were like the kind of environment you’d expect to see in the aftermath of 19th century mining operations except here it was alive, steaming, bubbling, flowing, stinking and every bit a part of the landscape as the trees and birds around us. My favourite feature was the Champaign pool, this was a circular pool of turquoise blue water with a rim of bulbous orange growths around it. The most amazing aspect of it is that it is less than twenty metres across but seventy five metres deep and one hundred and fifty celsius at the bottom where it narrows down to a tiny fracture in the rock. I certainly found here very interesting but alas I had to be in Taupō soon so I got back in my car and headed south.
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