Waimangu Valley Hike

The last thing Patty and I did on our trip to Rotorua was a hike through Waimangu Valley.

Waimangu Valley is the youngest geothermally active area in the world, and "the only hydrothermal system in the world the commencement of whose surface activity can be pinned down to an exact day, namely 10 June 1886" (quote from our Wanderer Guide).

(Note: You may well pick up on the lack of commas in the quotes from the Wanderer Guide. Kiwis do not seem to like commas, and leave them out in many places where I think Americans would use them. Interesting and a bit hard to get used to, but I'm getting there.)

It was an amazing walk, and I am extremely disappointed with the lousy job my pictures do to capture the impressiveness of what we saw. So... you'll all just have to come visit and see it all for yourself. That works out well, since you should do that anyway.

Echo Crater and Frying Pan Lake: "On 1 April 1917 the western basin of Echo Crater violently erupted. ... The deepened and enlarged crater quickly accumulated water and formed what is now known as Frying Pan Lake. The lake covered 38,000 square metres, being the world's largest hot spring. ... The lake water is acidic, while the carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide gas bubbling up gives the appearance of boiling. In fact in vents on the lake bed real boiling is occurring, but the body of the lake is somewhat cooler because of evaporation, convection and radiation of its heat" (quote from our Wanderer Guide).

This is Emerald Lake. Now, I know you're going to say that it is not anywhere near the colour of emeralds, and that's true. Apparently it fluctuates between brown and green, and they decided that
"emerald" was better than any of the brown things they could have named it after. So obviously we caught it on a brown day. Interestingly, though, while it looks like it's that colour because it's full of mud, but it's not. It's just the unique combination of minerals in the water.

These are Nga Pui o Te Papa (Hot Springs of Mother Earth). It is sadly difficult to tell in the picture, but everywhere you see something vaguely circular, there is hot water boiling up from the ground. If you look to the far right (in the middle up and down), there is a dark circle with white in the middle - that's water bubbling up. There were lots of those, but they don't snow up in the picture.
The hardest thing about taking this picture was the steam - every time I thought I was going to get a good picture, it would fog up my lens and I would get nothing. I ended up having to back way up and zoom in, and still had to wait for the right wind to come up!

This isn't an official attraction, just a hot river minding its own business, but I thought it was quite beautiful with the bright green moss, so it gets its moment in the sun.

Te Ara Mokoroa Terrace (The Long Abiding Path of Knowledge): "These silica terraces have been built by 'Spring N' which suddenly started life in 1975 as a small erupting spring. At the time, because of its site within the old Waimangu Geyser basin, it was felt by scientists that it might be the forerunner to larger events and visitor access to the crater was restricted for a short time. The name of this spring group maybe have been chosen to reflect the scientists' attempts to understand nature here" (quote from our Wanderer Guide).

This stunning place is Inferno Crater Lake. It goes in a cycle of filling, overflowing, receding, oscillating, and then filling to overflow again. You can see the white line of silica around it that marks its highest level, which it was moving towards the day we were there. Lucky for us, in the days when it's refilling, it is this unbelievable crystalline blue that takes your breath away!

Please notice that my hat matches the water!

Bird's Nest Terrace: "Striking multi-coloured algae adhere to the delicate miniature silica terraces formed by these boiling springs. The different colours are caused by the varying temperature in the outflow from these springs. Blue-green algae cannot survive at more than 75C (167F)" (quote from our Wanderer Guide). 

You can see the little snakey lines where there is no blue-green algae - must be very hot!

We found Clamshell Spring after passing several silica formations that we thought could probably be described as shaped like clamshells. When we saw this one, we felt a bit silly for having been willing to settle for the others, because it is so clearly the one and only clamshell.

Warbrick Terrace: "A set of multi-coloured fast growing silica platforms forming over an old stream terrace. ... In addition algae in recent years have assisted in the silica deposition to build a dam across the warm stream draining through the crater. A further series of ripple terraces are now forming at right angles to the original ones" (quote from our Wanderer Guide).

I'm not completely sure that I understand what all of that means, but the resulting formation is visually stunning and unique!

At the end of our hike, we reached Lake Rotomahana, which is a bird sanctuary. We didn't spend too long birdwatching, because we needed to catch the bus back to the beginning, but we saw heaps of black swans, coots, and ducks. We didn't spot any of the more rare native birds, but that's okay. It was a beautiful lookout and a nice way to spend our last few minutes before getting on the bus.

From there, we headed back home to New Plymouth, and I went back to work the next day. Patty spent the rest of the week with us, doing fun things around New Plymouth and coming to work with me for two half days, which was great. It's always nice to show people where I work, and how wonderful and exhausting it is. It was lovely to have her visit, and to get to see so many amazing things on our travels together! She is still in NZ, helpxing in the Coromandel at the moment, and having a great time!