We wake to the most glorious view from our little tent – the sun rising over the lake just feet from our pitch, the waters lapping gently and the ducks waddling just outside the tent. Can it get better than this? A rowing team is out for an early morning training session and someone is paddling a kayak.
We have to be up and out early for our trip to Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Park. This park covers some 18 sq km and is the largest area of surface thermal activity in the Taupo volcanic region. The area is covered with collapsed craters up to 50 metres in diameter and up to 20 metres deep. Most have been formed over the last few hundred years by the action of acidic vapours rising from the below ground and dissolving the ground above. There are boiling pools of mud, water and steaming fumeroles. We arrive early for the eruption of the Lady Knox geyser which is primed to blow at 10.15am every day. The geyser is a short drive from the Visitors Centre and we overhear an American complaining – in all seriousness – that they should have built the geyser nearer the Visitors Centre! The geyser is induced to blow by using chemical blocks to break the tension of the surface cold water allowing the hot water beneath to shoot up several metres into the air. An impressive sight. The geyser was discovered by convicts whilst washing their clothes in the hot surface pool; soap breaking the surface tension and causing it to blow! There are 25 points of specific interest in the park and we spend about an hour-and-half fascinated by the effects of the thermal activity. Beneath the ground is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. The water is so hot (temperatures of up to 300 degrees C have been recorded) that it absorbs minerals out of the rocks through which it passes and transports them to the surface as steam where they are absorbed into the ground. As a result there is a wide range of coloured deposits in the area adding to the dramatic effect – green, orange, purple, white, yellow, red-brown and black The most spectacular are the vivid lime green Devil’s bath, the pale green of Lake Ngakoro, and the multi-coloured Artist’s palette. There is a board walk across a huge sinter terrace which cover an area of 3 acres and has been created over the last 700 years as silica has been deposited from the water that trickles over it. www.waiotapu.co.nz
After lunch we visit the Te Puia Maori cultural centre. This is set in another geo-thermal park. Although not as varied as Wai-o-Taipu, the large and vigourously boiling mud pool, Nga Mokai a Koko, and the 30-metre Pohutu geyser which spontaneously erupts 20 times a day soaking bystanders with a fine, cold water spray, are dramatic. There are several traditional Maori buildings here, including Te Aroni a Rua Meeting House – decorated with intricate carvings, woven wall panels and patterned roof beams – as well as nationally re-knowned carving and weaving schools which teach traditional Maori skills. The highlight though is the cultural performance of action song and dance which starts with an elaborate Maori welcome haka led by a Maori warrior on the marae (the area in front of the meeting house). After the formal welcome ceremony we enter the meeting house for a performance of wonderfully uplifting, evocative and graceful action songs and very dexterous poi and stick dances. (Poi are balls on cord which are twirled whilst rhythmically hitting the back and front of the hands) and a powerful haka full of energetic movements and fearsome facial expressions including bulging eyes and the sticking out of tongues. The Polynesian roots of the Maori culture are very much in evidence in the traditional dress, the rhythms and the hand and body movements..