Wai-O-Tapu

One of the main towns to see in North Island is Rotorua, which is famous for all of its local thermal activity. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, this thermal activity also brings with it a nice sulfur smell, aka rotten eggs. No matter, some of the activity produces weird and wonderful landscapes that you are unlikely to see elsewhere. We visited the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Park, which has an interesting selection of various geological sights. Since I'm not a geologist, I won't try to interpret what's going on in all these pictures, but I hope you enjoy all the same.

A lush landscape dotted with thermal vents:



Lovely colored rocks:



Not so lovely colored rocks:



Bubbling mud pool in a cave:



Surface mud pools:



Beautiful waterscapes:









And, the Champagne Pool. The orange shelf on the side contains gold and silver (along with a lot of other stuff you probably don't want in your jewellery).