22nd-23rd March 2016

The weather has been kind to us until now and its a shame that it was overcast with rain never far away for our visit to Roturo. Thermal wonder and spa, the land of geysers, sulphurous odours and steam vents, is at the northern line of thermal activity and faults lines stretching south to Lake Taupo. Driving through the town, a distinct but not overpowering smell of rotten eggs is everywhere, imagine living with that, all the time! The pretty town gardens have steam vents, in fact they crop up regularly. The town museum is housed in the old early 20th C mud baths, when bathing in the local mud, steam and thermal waters complete with a worrying acid content, was considered beneficial! The Maori considered this a treasured and sacred site and the museum has a very good exhibition on this.

The thermal parks like Waimangu, are the key attraction with geysers that blow like clockwork. The ground around the vents is anything from 20-50C, more for real hotspots, steam rises from the many vents and shafts, delicate ferns thrive in the constant steamy heat, many rare. The lakes and silica terraces, white, pink and rusty, form from the mineral content deposited by the water and steam, have created extraordinary landscapes before being blown away by the Mount Tarawera Eruption in 1886 that famously destroyed the Pink and White Terraces and also killed over 150 people. These terraces were amazingly large steps of flowing icing like silica, with basins large enough for bathing, popular with tourists until their destruction.