Update number three from New Zealand - following our White Water Rafting adventure on Friday, yesterday we had a more sedate day planned - in the morning we visited Wai-o-Taupu Thermal Wonderland, an absolutely amazing valley of volcanic rivers and mud pools which really is a colourful wonderland. The chemicals being spewed forth from the earth make marvellous colour combinations - bright greens, oranges, reds, yellows mixed in with greys and blacks. And smoke. Lots of smoke. Smoke that smells like rotten eggs!
We also got to see the Lady Knox geyser blow - it goes off once every 24 hours at a precise time thanks to some human intervention (three small bars of "soap") - the story goes that the geyser was discovered by some convicts at an open prison near by. After a hard day planting conifers they thought they would put the hot water flowing out of the earth to good use - by washing their clothes in it! In went the clothes, in went the soap, BOOM went the geyser! Apparently the soap helps the geyser to release the pressure, and after many experiments the Kiwi boffins have found the exact chemical that has least interference and impact on the environment but at the same time produces maximum boom and bang on a daily basis. If there were no interference the thing would let off its steam on its own roughly every 72 hours, give or take a couple of hours.
After the thermal wonderland we stopped off at Te Puia or Whakarewarewa (pronounced fa-ka-re-wa-re-wa) Maori village. A nice guided tour around the place with a Maori/Scottish guide gave us a bit of insight into Maori culture. Apparently about 80% or Maori people today are of mixed British lineage - only 20% of the population are pure blood Maori. We also paid to see a short concert and Haka, interesting and possibly the only opportunity to see such a performance since Rugby matches for the All Blacks are prohibitively expensive and inter-tribal wars are a thing of the past!
Today we visited Waitomo, an area of New Zealand famous for its Glow Worm caves. The day started with a 30m abseil down into the cave, then some black water rafting (a much tamer thing than it sounds - imagine sitting in an inflated inner tube as it wafts slowly - very slowly - down a calm stream). As soon as you step a few meters into the caves you are told to switch off the miner's lamps - and lo and behold, you're under a canopy of stars! Millions of glow worms line the ceiling of these caves. After a bit more "rafting" we did some tame caving and "squeezing" through wide-ish cracks. To finish off the adventure we climbed out of the hole that we abseiled into. What a great day! Sadly they wanted some NZ$20 for a photo CD and they strategically tell everyone to leave their cameras behind... so no photos of the Waitomo milky way. But I'm sure you'll find some pictures if you google Waitomo Caves.
Tomorrow we head off to Taupo, another lake resort where we would like to undertake some more adventure sports, but the met man has predicted thunderstorms... Till next time, hold your breath and pray for sunshine down under folks!
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