There are 4 major hot springs around Rotorua: Whakarewarewa, Waimangu, Waiotapu and Hell’s Gate. Whakarewarewa is arguably Rotorua’s most active thermal area and is home to the Pohutu geyser, which spews up to a height of 30 m about 20 times a day. Other sights in Whaka include hot mud baths and hot springs.
The journey is already spectacular. The path leads us through a barren landscape to Devils Home! Hot fumes rise from the cave that do not bode well.
We want to take a closer look at this spectacle. It hisses and bubbles from the maw and Devils Home lives up to its name.
The landscape around Rotorua is an unreal poisonous cuisine of bubbling and hissing fumes and stinking toxic gases that rise from underground crevices and take our breath away.
But there are also hot springs, as big as lakes, which have temperatures around 100 degrees. You should avoid falling into it at all costs. The chances of survival are zero. Hot water vapor rises from the lakes and in the middle a bubbling primordial mass swells, rising from depths of up to several hundred meters.
The interior of our earth becomes tangible, so Brigitte has to overcome herself quite a bit to walk over this narrow footbridge. A short slip and it’s over…
We still haven’t seen enough of this unreal landscape that captivates us. At this point, yellowish foul-smelling mud rises from the earth’s interior. Elsewhere, the boiling water bubbles and bubbles on the surface. At the edge of the lake, a reddish coloration of iron ore is formed. We continue to walk over narrow boardwalks through this primeval landscape and are surprised again and again by new eruptions and vapors.
New Zealand – Rotorua – jetty over a primeval lakeNew Zealand – Rotorua – reddish brown deposits at the lake
Here you can clearly see traces of phosphorus, which have also been deposited on the rock faces.
New Zealand – Rotorua – Phosphorus formation in the lakeNew Zealand – Rotorua – Phosphorus
The fumes obscure the view of the wider landscape. Everywhere the water of the lakes seems to be in motion.
We see how the water heated up in the Earth’s interior makes its way to the surface. The whole lake here is a bubbling and boiling mass, at the edges of which red iron ores have been deposited. Finally we have managed to find our way out of this primeval scenery in one piece. We have to process these tremendous impressions first. Jürgen can’t resist risking one last look into the earth’s interior.
