After the long drive, it was nice to have a base in the hot springs spa.

      Taupo lies in a Caldera and geothermally heated water seeps out through the Earth's crust.

    Here is Lake Taupo, the largest in New Zealand, about the size of Singapore. It is a result of a huge volcanic eruption that took place 26,500 years ago.

    March 26, 2008 was a very special day indeed. I took a skydive.

    Taupo has become skydive capital of New Zealand.  I took my jump with SkydiveTaupo. All clients are transported to the site by limo.

    Here I am with my instructor, Peter.

    Below are photographs of the descent. It was quite an experience!

    Here I am in front of the Huka Falls, a short but fast flowing water fall on the Waikato River, the longest river in New Zealand. Click here to see a film I took.

    I visited 'The Craters of the Moon', small thermal park north of Taupo. It sprang into life in the 1950s, when the geothermal power station was set up nearby, altering the underground hydrodynamics.

    Collapsed craters, such as these, are the result of hydrogen sulphide, ascending with steam from a deep hot water reservoir. They react with oxygen to form sulphuric acid, which dissolves the rock under the surface.

  Tree ferns are very common in New Zealand, and are particularly adept at growing in the acidic soil, found in thermal areas.

    I attended a cultural evening at the Wairakei Terraces.  For us to enter the village, our guide had to initiate a peace offering. Click here to see some of it.

These girls are playing. To see a film, click here.

    Here are the manmade cascading silica terraces. These terraces are attributed to the original ones that once existed here at Wairakei, and are reminiscent of the magnificent pink and white terraces that were destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Tarawera 1886.

   After the tour, there was a hangi feast (various meats, potatoes and sweet potatoes cooked for hours in an earth oven). 
    After the meal there was some singing and dancing.

    The concert finished with the haka. There was some audience participation, and so I learned a few steps, and slaps!

  The best of the geothermal areas I visited was Wai-o-Tapu (sacred water), 30 km south of Rotorua.

    Here is the rainbow crater. Iron oxide is chiefly responsible for the red colour around the crater.

    I've already seen some blue lakes and turquoise lakes. Here's a yellowy-green lake, known as the 'Devil's Bath'.   The colour is the result of sulphur suspended in the water.  It has a pH of 3.9.

    This one is sort of cyan, I guess. It's Lake Ngakoro.   it is a hydrothermal ruction crater filled with acidic water. It covers 12 hectares.

    There is an impressive bubbling mud pool at Wai-O-Tapu. Mud pools are acidic and are formed when acidic steam condensate (sulphuric acid) reacts with the surface rock form clay. Rainwater turns the clay into mud. Gases emerging from beneath causes the bubbling.

    Here is the sulphur cave. It's difficult to see here, but in the shelter, sulphur, that has condensed from acidic steam, has formed complex crystalline structures.

    One of the stars of the show is the Lady Knox Geyser. It erupts daily at 10.15am. To see a film of the eruption I saw, click here.
 
    This geyser was discovered by inmates of a nearby open prison who, while doing their laundry, caused an eruption by adding soap.

  For me, the most impressive feature was the Champagne Pool. it is a 700-year-old alkali-chloride pool. It is 62 m deep and 65 m in diameter.  The water temperature 74° C.

    The ledge is the result of silification (silica dissolved by the acid water coming out of solution). The orange colour is the result of antimony minerals in the ledge.

    Microbial colonies exist on the outer ledge just above the water level. However it's only a matter of time before they become fossilised.

    The Champagne Pool has been tilted by earthquake activity.  Consequently liquid spills over into the Artist's Palette.

    This, I think, is a Rainbow Mountain, on the road to Rotorua.

    The journey to Rotorua was a smelly one! This due to the increasing concentration of hydrogen sulphide vents. But one gets used to the pong quite quickly after arriving.
  I was impressed by the number and variety of restaurants in Rotorua, and I enjoyed them!

    Here is an entrance to the orchid gardens at Rotorua. and the opposite of the gardens is the Museum of Art History Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa, or the "old bathhouse".
    It was originally a geothermal spa, offering therapeutic  treatments. It was the New Zealand Government’s first major investment in the tourism industry and visitors from all over the world would come to bathe in the mud baths. Unfortunately, over time, the building decayed; hydrogen sulphide made the walls go black. The baths in the basement now among the exhibits!

    Some pretty flowers in the Orchid Gardens.  I note think that many of them raw kids though.

    I went to Te Puia.   It is another thermal park, with a mock Maori village. I'm not glad that I went, as it was not as good as Wai-O-Tapu but had twice the admission fee.....
    However, it has a geyser to rival Lady Knox, the Pohutu geyser, which erupts several times a day and remains active to some degree all the time.

    I did manage to see a kiwi at Te Puia. it was dark and it was curled up a little bit.

    I next visited the caves at Waitomo. I did some adventure caving. That started with me abseiling down into a cave entrance.

    We had to wade through cold water and squeeze through tight corners.

    Sometimes we rode across the water on rubber rings. On one occasion, we were required to jump backwards onto the water holding the ring behind as shown.

    It could just be that our cheeky guide (I think his name was Dan) wanted to laugh at us!

    One of the most magical moments of the holiday, was when we turn the lights off in the cave and saw the glowworms.

  Our guide, being an expert cave photographer (?), took a long exposure photograph of us such that the glowworms' glow was visible.

   A glowworm is the larva of the fungus gnat. The larva's rear end illuminates, with the help of bacteria, so as to confuse insects that have wandered into the cave. such insects think that the lights are stars in the night sky and thus fly towards them and become stuck in sticky gangling threads that the glowworm makes. Once caught, the insects are hauled in and eaten.

   We saw a few wetas in the cave, such as this.

Needless to say, I saw many stalactites and stalagmites

    We did come across a cave eel. This one is in a tank at the Museum of Caves, which I visit later in the day.

    Here's quite an impressive stalagmite found at the museum.

    Here's the skeleton of a moa, that had been found in the caves.

The final destination, before coming home was Auckland. I only spent one day in the city,  partly due to hearsay, but would like to have spent longer.
    I went to the city Art Gallery, but the main building, show here, was closed.

   I went to the smaller section of the road and saw a few artistic photographs.... I can't remember much about them!

    Here is the Skytower. This building is 328 metres tall, and the tallest building in the southern hemisphere.

    The Skytower is the high point in, what is for the most part, a lowrise city.  Here are some of the views of the city. a white building in the foreground is the Auckland Museum.

    Here is a view looking towards Rangitoto, youngest and largest of Auckland's volcanoes.

    Here is a view looking towards the motorway bridge over Waitemate Harbour.

    On my final afternoon in New Zealand I decided to take voyage around the Hauraki Gulf on the catamaran (the boat closest to us in the photo) in the hope of spotting a few whales and dolphins.

   There is a view looking back towards the city.

    It was quite a bumpy voyage. Consequently, quite a few people threw up. I was okay though.

    We spotted a few gannets and shearwaters. they typically circle around areas where there is a large fish concentration. Dolphins tend to stir the fish into into a bait ball,  making them easier to get at the for the birds as well.

    A gannet is swooping in there!

    Unfortunately that was about as hot as the action got. Some dolphins did appear, but I didn't manage to see one. Consequently, I have been given a complimentary voucher for another voyage, should I ever returned to Auckland.

    I had a nice fish supper, looking over Waitemate Harbour. Afterwards I had to make the long trip home :(

       That was a full on two weeks!