New Zealand's Volcanic Valley

Sunday, February 7 – a day spent exploring New Zealand’s volcanic activity. We are on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a place where the Indo - Australian plate slips under the Pacific plate. We drove to the Waimangu Volcanic Valley, called the world’s youngest geothermal area. This was created by the latest eruption of Mt. Tarawera in 1886.

Waimangu Volcanic Valley

We took a walk with a naturalist down a lush valley of green vegetation and pink silica terraces. He pointed out Inferno crater which was sometimes filled with turquoise water (today it was brown because of the run off from the rain) and Frying Pan Lake which is the world’s largest hot spring. We saw bubbling mud pools, geothermal geysers and steam vents.

We ended up at Lake Rotomahana where we got on a small boat and cruised around the lake. It was beautiful weather and we saw black swans and other birds in the water. We saw other evidence of geothermal activity as we did the circumference of the lake. The lake was formed by the 1886 eruption when craters were filled by water. It is one of the largest and newest lakes and has no natural outlet. Patiti Island in the lake has been made predator free.

Don & Suzanne at the mud pots

On our way back to Rotorua we visited some mud pools. Similar features can be found all over this area. We had a picnic lunch in a California Redwood forest! It turns out that New Zealand lost most of its trees early in the 1900’s to over logging. They tried planting different kinds of trees to see which would be the best for logging and wood production. It turns out the Monterrey Pine won! But, they had stands of other trees planted that were just kept for tourist purposes. So, that is where the California Redwoods came from!

Tree walk in Redwood forest

I spent the afternoon soaking in the thermal – mineral pools at Polynesian Spa. Yummy on my sore joints! And tomorrow we head for Queenstown by plane.