Day 10 in New Zealand

Rotorua is in the middle of an active geothermal area on a fault line that cuts right through New Zealand's North Island. For a place without a lot of obvious pulp mills it sure smells like one. It is not uncommon to see clouds of steam on the side of the road as there seem to be steam vents everywhere. This one in the picture above was coming right out of Matthew's head.

There are a few places around that have a concentration of geothermal activity so they naturally charge admission. We visited the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland where there are large craters formed where the ground rock is erroded by the steam and water. At the bottom of each one we could hear, and sometimes see, boiling water and mud.

This is the Champagne Pool where it is said that the water at the bottom is 230 degrees celcius. The water at the top is a chilly 74 celcius.

A distant view of part of Wai-O-Tapu. You can see the Champagne pool in the distance as the large cloud of steam.

Right outside of Wai-O-Tapu there is a sign labeled "mud pits" so we followed it. As it turns out there were mud pits down that road. Not just any mud pits... boiling mud pits.

Blurp!

In the town of Rotorua there is a park like you see in many towns. It has playing fields, a pond with a bridge across it, a playground, and boiling mud pits. Here we are soaking our feet in the pool of geothermally heated sulphur water from the pond. It is supposed to be good for your feet. I guess that makes up for the smell.