Our main plan for Rortura was to see some geothermal activity. There are a lot of spas in the town where you can bathe in hot springs, take mud baths, that kind of thing. But given the amount of time we had, we decided to go for a hike and see the raw nature of Rotorua. So we drove about 20 minutes south of the city to Waimangu Volcanic Valley.
The drive was beautiful, just like every one of our drives here.
Waimangu is an interesting area: the present-day geothermal features were all made relatively recently in 1886. Since then, the area has been a tourist destination, and there even used to be a hotel there in the early 1920s for tourists to come experience all the pools and springs. There has been a lot of change in the area, even since 1886: there was a geyser that erupted regularly for 4 years in 1900, and then just stopped. And the latest hydrothermal eruption was in 1973 - not so long ago! Seems like it's due for another one, but luckily we got in and out without any eruptions.
The area is now set up for visitors to take a 2-3 hour walk that goes around the most interesting areas as it descends to Lake Rotomahana. Then you get bussed back up to the top, which is quite handy! So that's what we did!
Even from the beginning of the walk, you could see steam coming up from the hills we would be walking through. So exciting! Toby and I both felt like dinosaurs could come walking out of the bush at any moment.
Toby also took this opportunity to use Dad's GoPro to capture the walk in real time. Video coming soon!
Our first significant stop was Frying Pan Lake.
The average lake temperature is 131 F, so as we got close we could hear the water around the edges of the lake boiling. Very cool! The steam also would wash over us, and we got warm just being near the lake.
The lake overflows into Hot Water Creek, where the water cools down to about 122 degrees. It also leaves lots of mineral deposits, which means the stream bed is bright and colorful.
The next interesting stop and my personal favorite was Inferno Crater Lake. It is actually a geyser, but the geyser is at the bottom of the lake, which was bright blue on the day we saw it. That's not always the case, so we felt very lucky!
Just like Frying Pan Lake, the water was extremely hot and the steam rolled over us in waves. Completely amazing!
After Inferno Crater Lake, Holly and I took a detour up and across the mountain top for a scenic overlook, while Toby stayed on the downward trail. It was a long vertical climb, but the views were great!
The rest of the walk was still interesting but with less spectacular geothermal features. There were these terrace formations that were formed by hot springs that bubbled up boiling water that slowly streamed over the rocks.
And then we finished our walk at Lake Rotomahana, where we caught the shuttle for a 20 minute ride back up the mountain.
Yay for a good walk in the volcanic valley!
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