Heated Earth

The trees get covered in a green algae - yes it is brown in colour
Spurting


Fish pond at the bottom of the garden

Steaming fields

So you want to sell your house, but instead of advertising ' fish pond at the bottom of the garden' you can advertise ' boiling mud pools at bottom of the garden'. Possibly adding in 'steaming holes in the garden' and 'central heating not required'. This is the area inland in central north island - the thermal area. But instead of making the area a national park, i.e. Yellowstone, the Kiwi's build towns and make use of this 'free' resource. At what cost I am not sure, i do not think I would like to live in an area that is so close to the earths core it is seeking an escape or where my child may just happen to fall into a boiling mud pool, or where the smell of sulphur is ever present. But hey, I am a tourist and it makes for a very picteresque if not a little risky area. The thermal area is quite extensive from the Lakes ot Taupo to the Lakes of Rotorua and beyond and in between these two towns there are 'thermal towns', volcanic areas', 'natural hot springs', thermal wonderlands' lots of areas all plying for your NZ$ to go and see the earth at its thinist - not at all like Yellowstone where one national park fee of US$25 will get a car load of people into the park for 7 days. As from my previous post things here are quite expensive and for almost each of the varying 'experiences' there is a cost of about $28 per person - quite steep if you are a family and you want to see a geyser and to swim in a hot pool! Oh dear! Am I ranting? Anyway.......

Waitupo offers a geyser, the Lady Knox and a thermal area with extensive steam pots, mud pools, fumuroles. lakes, rivers and waterfalls, all layed out in three varying length circular walks. The geyer is 'maniulated' to go off on a regular basis - daily at 10:15 - by having a soap like substance dropped down its hole to break the water tension between a cooler hot pool and a lower boiling pool thus making them mix and spurt out of the earth. The geyser flies to about 30m for a short while and then continues to spurt for almost an hour so quite spectacular. However, what are we doing by manipulating the event - the geyser would go off naturally on its own, possibly once every three days, but obvioulsy, far less pradictably. The 3 circular walks were very interesting and the sulphur waterfall was quite pretty - very yellow. If I had not been to Yellowstone then this would have been an amazing experience, as it is, I have been to Yellowstone, and it is far superior in many many ways. Perhaps too much travel is not such a good thing, perhaps our expectations just grow and grow and we are ever more difficult to please.