Rotorua's Thermal Magic

This entry was posted on 12/15/2006 3:06 AM and is filed under New Zealand.

Our adventure in Rotorua took us to the Te Puia Thermal area - and we spent an hour and a half there wandering around in amazement.  They have several distinct geysers, much like Old Faithful, but part of what was particularly neat about this area was its significance as an area where the Maori had lived.  There are many displays showing how they integrated the thermal areas into their daily life.

One such area is this "Cooking Hole" - ya gotta watch the movie to believe it - water boiling right at the surface.  Now that's hot!

Cooking Pool in action - watch the movie








In addition to the cooking pool, there are also a number of mud pools like these...






And be sure to turn your speakers up as you watch this movie so you can hear the mud plopping - it's crazy!...

Plopping Bubbling Mud Pool Movie

But of course... the highlight was the main geyser, which goes off almost continuously all day..









Enjoy the movie too...

The Geyser movie

Here's that Maori influence...



and more...





The thermal areas were throughout the town and surrounding area.  One of our walks through town brought us to this pool...




yes - that does say TEMP 212 - I thought at first that meant centrigrade, which would translate to 413 degrees Farenheit, but found that very confusing, as 212 F = 100 C = the temperature that water boils.  As our friend Shelley wrote in though: "PS--that water temperature of 212 on Rachel Spring in Rotorua--that would be fahrenheit.  Probably the pool was built before they switched over to metric.  Water can't get hotter than 212F, unless it's under pressure in a closed container..... it turns to steam at 212F..."
Thanks Shelloolie - it never occured to me that New Zealand would have started F and then gone metric.  What a brilliant idea.  Wish we could be so flexibile too - stubborn yankees.




And here we were on the shore of Lake Rotorua, a large and very beautiful lake, and found several large thermal areas just mixing in with the cool lake water, like this...
(Yes - that is steam rising from the surface)....



You could always tell where the water temperater was "just right" because there'd be a large flock of these wonderful black swans - not the aggressive kind we usually see in the states, but pretty mellow ones...

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Comments

• 12/15/2006 2:18 PM Keith wrote:
  You are having so much fun!! Thanks for the ongoing travelogue - can't believe Evelyn actually docked the ferry!!! So butch!!
  Much love, Kturtle
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