Wednesday Oct 31st
Another bright blue sky and clear day. First item on the agenda was a visit to the aquarium where we saw a variety of sea life (surprise) much of it native to the New Zealand coast line.
We then headed north towards Rotorua.
View From the Passenger Seat
We stopped at the Hukka Falls. Although the falls only had a 9 metre drop, the flow of water over them was impressive (200, 000 litres /second or 9 Olympic size pools per minute). The falls were more horizontal than vertical having carved out a 15m wide gorge between two lakes.
Gorge before Hukka Falls
On the way north we passed through a very scenic area around Lake Taupo, here we once again saw the snow covered mountains.
View Across Lake Taupo
After the falls we headed off in search of thermal activity, we were entering a region where hat gasses and water rise up through the earth’s crust, leading to warm / hot ponds, boiling mud holes and other instruments of torture. Today we first found the boiling mud holes.
Mud Pond
Mud Pond
After the mud holes it was off to Kerosene Creek (I have no idea where the name came from) where there was a running warm water stream feeding into a large pond. The water was around 40-45C.
We then headed into Rotorua to check into the hotel. We met up with friends from home and hit the Pub!