January 21st – Wai-o-Tapu and Whakapapa

The overnight rain woke us up early in the morning after soaking through our tent, and subsequently our sleeping bags.  We packed up our soggy tent and made our way to the Wai-o-Tapu thermal park (arriving just as the ticket center was opening).  The drive to the park was like driving back through time.  The road was flanked by steaming scrub brush littered with fern trees.  I could almost see the dinosaurs thundering through the pre-historic landscape.
The thermal park itself has some really interesting features.  The thermal springs and pools host a whole variety of colors.  It’s almost like visiting an alien planet.

 

The most famous pool at the park is called the champagne pool.  The colors in it were pretty stunning.

 

 

After the champagne pool we visited a pool called “The Devil’s Bath” which is dyed bright green or yellow by the sulphur from the champagne pool.  These pictures don’t even do justice to the florescent green glow of the pools.

 

 

A few minutes from the park is the Lady Knox geyser which is provoked to erupt every day at 10:15 (by sprinkling laundry detergent into the geyser, breaking up the surface tension and releasing a 10-20 meter tall water column).

 

   

After leaving Wai-O-Tapu we made a quick stopover at Huka Falls, one of the biggest falls on the Waikato River.  The large river is pushed through a narrow rock channel then gushes out over a large pool.  After spending a few minutes at the falls Anna and I both desperately had to use the restroom, but the visitor center at the falls was the only pay toilet we found in New Zealand.  Sinister!

 

After leaving Huka Falls (and finding a free toilet) we made our way to the Whakapapa holiday park in the middle of the Tongariro National Park, an area renowned for it’s alpine hiking and winter sports.  After checking to our cozy dry cabin and hanging our camping gear up to dry, we went on a misty hike along the Taranaki falls walking track which took us through alpine shrublands, beech forest, and past the 20 meter Taranaki falls.

 

 

 

It’s true!  But it could use another exclamation point.