Wednesday, January
6th.
We had a good
provided breakfast before packing up and heading out. Our first stop
today was at the Waiotapu Thermal Park. This is an area of geothermal
activity at the surface. There were pools of steaming boiling mud,
and further on a good hike around another area of pools of various
colours caused by minerals: sulfur, iron and manganese. Very
beautiful rugged area very similar to Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic
National Park in California.
Then we loaded back in the bus for a short ride to the Geyser. This is a bit of a cheat in that because they cannot accurately predict its eruptions which occur every 30-50 hours, they 'seed' it with chemicals and it erupts on time for the tourists. Not as faithful as the old one!
From there we drove to see the beautiful Huka Falls on the Huka River. Then we went to the town of Taupo to have lunch at a restaurant on the shore of Lake Taupo with snow capped mountains on the other side. This lake is an enormous caldera from a huge volcanic eruption thousands of years ago.
After lunch we had a five hour drive to the capital city of New Zealand, Wellington, at the southern most point of the North Island. Max asked us if we would be interested in going somewhere where you could get milk from bulls, to which we expressed interested, so he stopped in a town called Bulls for a pee break. Check out the sign post for puns on Bulls.
When we got to Wellington we checked into the Waterloo Hotel where Queen Elizabeth stayed in 1953, but now it is a tired old backpackers hotel/hostel. After settling in Jan Eric, Delene, Maxi and I went for a walk to take the cable car up to Kelburn for a scenic view of the city and the harbour. Jan Eric got a call on his cell and had to go back to the hotel do some work. Another good reason for not having one. The three of us decided to walk back down through the botanical garden, which was beautiful. Back to the hotel for the evening typing and catching up on e-mails.
Then we loaded back in the bus for a short ride to the Geyser. This is a bit of a cheat in that because they cannot accurately predict its eruptions which occur every 30-50 hours, they 'seed' it with chemicals and it erupts on time for the tourists. Not as faithful as the old one!
From there we drove to see the beautiful Huka Falls on the Huka River. Then we went to the town of Taupo to have lunch at a restaurant on the shore of Lake Taupo with snow capped mountains on the other side. This lake is an enormous caldera from a huge volcanic eruption thousands of years ago.
After lunch we had a five hour drive to the capital city of New Zealand, Wellington, at the southern most point of the North Island. Max asked us if we would be interested in going somewhere where you could get milk from bulls, to which we expressed interested, so he stopped in a town called Bulls for a pee break. Check out the sign post for puns on Bulls.
When we got to Wellington we checked into the Waterloo Hotel where Queen Elizabeth stayed in 1953, but now it is a tired old backpackers hotel/hostel. After settling in Jan Eric, Delene, Maxi and I went for a walk to take the cable car up to Kelburn for a scenic view of the city and the harbour. Jan Eric got a call on his cell and had to go back to the hotel do some work. Another good reason for not having one. The three of us decided to walk back down through the botanical garden, which was beautiful. Back to the hotel for the evening typing and catching up on e-mails.
Funny sign post haha
ReplyDelete