The Virtual Reinhard
Created | Updated Feb 23, 2006
A Letter from Rotorua Part 3
Waimangu Volcanic Valley
In the spring of 1886, the area around Mount Tarawera was a popular tourist destination, due in the main to two spectacular geological features known respectively as the White and Yellow Terraces, a set of brightly coloured cliffs with steaming hot water pools and falls. There are many pictures of parasol-bearing ladies in crinolined dresses perambulating around on the rocks.
Then, in June of that year, the mountain blew its top and ripped a fault line 16 kilometres long that destroyed the existing lake system, along with seven small villages and both terraces. When the magma hit the hydrothermal springs, the resultant explosion hurled rock, dust and and sand some 11 kilometres into the air, raining down in a boiling flood on the surrounding countryside. All life, both animal and vegetable, was destroyed in the cataclysm, so the riot of greenery seen today is all new growth.
Close to Frying Pan Lake, so called because of the crackling and bubbling sounds that it makes, the cataclysm briefly created the worlds biggest geyser, which played from 1900 to 1904, although nothing remains of it today.
Inferno Crater Lake is the largest geyser-like feature in the world, although the geyser itself cannot be seen because it plays at the bottom of the lake. However, it's results are seen in the curious cyclical water level which follows a regular pattern over a period of about six weeks. The water is highly acidic, sometimes around pH 2.1, and at up to 30 metres deep and 80 centigrade, at which temperature it overflows to feed the hotwater features further downstream.
One of these features is Warbrick Terrace. The colourful shallows are caused not only by crystallising minerals, but also by various red and green algae that colonise the pools.
At the far end of the walk, a boat was waiting to take us out onto Lake Rotomohana. After the 1886 eruption, the resultant crater slowly filled with rainwater until it covered an area twenty times that of the original lakes, with a water level 40 metres higher.
On the one hand, this enormous mass of water has covered over almost all of the interesting scars, so that much of the tour comprises 'we are now floating over the site of...'. On the other hand, the captain gave us a fascinating history of the explosion and of the subsequent recovery of the flora and fauna.
Wai-O-Tapu
The Wai-O-Tapu thermal area covers some 18 square kilometres and is literally covered with collapsed craters, cold and boiling pools of mud and water and steaming fumaroles. It's a pretty spectacular place, with all sorts of colours and formations, and over an hour's worth of walking tracks between them.
Boiling Mud Pool
Finally, just before we left the region, we stopped at a mud pool by the side of the road. We sat on the fence and listened as it made satisfying cooking noises and burped large gouts of mud several feet into the air, all accompanied by the curious smell of hot dog sausages.
A very curious part of the world indeed.
