Cent­ral North Island sim­mers and steams, bubbles and spews. The pun­gent smell of sul­phur eman­ates from the rising hot steam in a harsh and unin­vit­ing land­scape. Lakes have formed in the cal­deras of vol­ca­noes where once mighty erup­tions occurred the likes of which we have not seen in our life­time of which epic stor­ies are told. Mud pools bubble at the sur­face, great foun­tains of boil­ing water charge out from large pools below the earth’s crust and min­er­als col­our the bare craggy rock in rich primary colours.

Plant-life of course finds a way to take root in the sur­round­ing area and with it human­ity thrives. Pop­u­la­tion num­bers here are high by NZ stand­ards des­pite the two vast dormant vol­ca­noes hid­den beneath Lakes Rotorua and Taupo.

 

Lake Rotorua and Rotorua Museum

Lake Rotorua at dawn is a sight to beheld. The lake steams against the blue, blue sky as the light glistens across the still blue water. The smell of sul­phur per­meates the air and birds fill the skies in search of a cool spot to rest. In this envir­on­ment you become increas­ingly aware of the earth as a liv­ing breath­ing organ­ism. To really appre­ci­ate this amaz­ing scene you must take a dip at the Poly­ne­sian Spa. There are eight out­door pools to dip in and out off at leis­ure and the most beau­ti­ful lakeside view. The thermal pools are cloudy white with min­er­als and organic mat­ter which floats around you. The advise is to dip for only 15 minutes at a time and rehyd­rate often as it is easy to over­heat, but in return you get to look like you are on the cover of Conde Nast Trav­el­ler magazine. For a less crowded exper­i­ence go straight here first thing in the morning.

Rotorua town­ship is not par­tic­u­larly remark­able from an ascetic view­point, but gems can still be found here. Top of our list was the Rotorua museum, within walk­ing dis­tance from the spa, it is held in a beau­ti­ful old Bath House. The museum is mainly ded­ic­ated to its her­it­age as a geo­thermal spa and thera­peutic treat­ment centre. In its hey­day treat­ments were admin­istered in indi­vidual rooms with sunken baths powered by the lake and elec­tro­cu­tion ther­apy was even used. An enga­ging exhib­i­tion also details the events of Mt Tarawera erup­tion of 10 June 1886 where many vil­lages were bur­ied along with the world renowned Pink and White Ter­races. Described as the ‘Eighth Won­der of the World’ people from all over the world would have come to bathe in the ter­races geo­thermal waters. The Bath House roof ter­race enjoys extens­ive views of both Rotorua town­ship and the lake.

Ever present through­out New Zea­l­and and no less so here is Maori cul­ture. Tra­di­tional Maori even­ings can be enjoyed includ­ing tast­ing hangi (a tra­di­tional meal cooked in the ground). Though this offers an inter­est­ing insight into their cul­ture we chose to miss this on overly-touristic grounds. Later we learnt that to sample ‘good’ hangi you must attend a real Maori cere­mony. I have yet to taste hangi but hope it will chal­lenge my taste-buds when I do. A his­tor­ic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant Maori church sits on the shores of the lake but sadly we were unable to nav­ig­ate the tiny old streets in our ‘Mam­moth’ camper­van so we leave you this gem to discover.

   
 

Hell’s Gate

Just a short jour­ney north east of the lake leads you to the geo­thermal park of Hell’s Gate. The stench of sul­phur invades the nos­trils with even more vigour here, but this is an impress­ive place not to be missed. From small fumar­oles that puff like a Cuban cigar to great chasms that boil and steam with a fog like haze. To see is to believe! It is like step­ping onto another planet that has no concept of plant or animal life. Here everything will kill you. Still there is beauty and pleas­ure to be found even in this most alien of places. 

 

James rumin­at­ing in the warm mud spa and the thermal pool we enjoyed look­ing over Hell’s Gate!

Strangely enough you can enjoy a mud spa and thermal pool here! Hav­ing enjoyed the lux­ury of the Poly­ne­sian Spa that morn­ing the thermal spa here was not a draw for us, we came for the mud spa! Dur­ing off peak sea­son you get a mud pool to yourselves which we were glad of as it is quite an intim­ate and fun exper­i­ence smear­ing each other with thick slimy clay-like mud from the bot­tom of the pool. Now the fun really starts when rins­ing the mud off in the pool and then shower­ing the rest off before enter­ing the warm and invit­ing thermal spa pool. Need­less to say the shower was ice cold and my slightly pad­ded bikini top had absorbed an insane amount of resid­ual mud. James was only too thrilled to watch me shriek and squirm in agony whilst I cleaned myself and my bikini! Finally three minutes later we quietly slipped into the spa only to real­ise that every­one in the spa had heard my screams! Luck­ily the heat of the spa cam­ou­flaged my embar­rass­ment, but did not stay long!

 

Early morn­ing at Lake Rerewhakaaitu

DOC camp­sites grant you the free­dom that hol­i­day parks just can’t and Lake Rerewhakaaitu at the base of Mt Tarawera was no excep­tion. The low morn­ing mist over the lake felt as if you were the first ever people to enjoy this place. Ducks quietly paddles across the reed riddled lake. There was a sense of com­fort know­ing such tran­quil places exist between the effer­ves­cence of the region.

 

The won­drous col­our palette of Wai-O-Tapu

In con­trast, fur­ther south Wai-O-Tapu is a vast geo­thermal hot­spot com­plete with rivers of sul­phur, lakes of mul­ti­tudin­ous col­ours, cook­ing pot pools and even pools the shape of Aus­tralia! Though the high­lights here are the fam­ous Cham­pagne Pool and Lady Knox Gey­ser. The Cham­pagne Pool, shown above and at the top of this fea­ture, effer­vesces with steam from an extremely deep flute-shaped pool edged by a mag­ni­fi­cent rich primary col­our palette. The orange is cre­ated by layer upon layer of arsenic, so “Don’t lick it!”.

At 10:30 daily Lady Knox lets off some steam!

Lady Knox Gey­sers was dis­covered by unsus­pect­ing crim­in­als using the water to wash their clothes. In doing so wash­ing powder was added to the water in the fun­nel which acted as a cata­lyst and caused the first known erup­tion from the vast under­ground pool. Erup­tion heights depends of the volume of water within the under­ground pool, but this erup­tion was con­sidered to be about 50m high. Today it reaches an impress­ive 30m and is still activ­ated by wash­ing powder at 10:30 each day for the pay­ing spectators.

The gey­ser ini­tially begins to froth and foam at the top, pour­ing white suds down the pro­trud­ing fun­nel as steam rises above. As Lady Knox reaches fever pitch water gushes out with the force of a fire­man hose gush­ing ver­tic­ally into the air. A blanket of water droplets floats on the wind so cam­era pro­tec­tion is advised! All said it was touristy but an impress­ive sight non-the-less.

Lake Taupo in con­sid­er­ably dif­fer­ent weather

Lake Taupo is the moth­er­ship in com­par­ison to Rotorua in size and vol­canic prowess. Clas­si­fied as a dormant super­vol­cano, cre­ated about 26.5 thou­sand years ago, the last erup­tion here is believed to have ejec­ted 100 cubic kilo­met­ers of mater­ial of which 30 cubic kilo­met­ers was ejec­ted within a few minutes! Ash from the erup­tion was repor­ted to have turned the sky red over China and Rome.

The view over the lake is serene and tells noth­ing of its viol­ent his­tory. Look­ing over the shores on a clear day you are blessed with a beau­ti­ful view of Tongariro National Park, home of Mt Doom! Lake Taupo is home to fish­ing in a big way and most par­tic­u­larly trout fish­ing which reminded me of my Grand­father who was a won­der­ful trout fish­er­man. Whilst back­pack­ing everything comes down to price and this activ­ity sure was pricy so we shall saved it for a rainy day in Scot­land! Taupo is also a great place for to make a leap out of a plane, though we chose Queen­stown for all our crazy adventures.

Lake Taupo is a won­der­ful place in sun­shine but when the rain sets in, which it did for 5 days after we arrived, it is time to seek drier climes. The East coast is the right place to hole out in with its potent vine­yards, art deco build­ings and dry coastal air and so we returned to the region a few days later.

Vol­ca­noes in North Island come in all shapes and sizes, from lake-filled to snow-capped. But none more iconic or fam­ous than the cone-shaped vol­cano of Mt Ngaur­uhoe encap­su­lated forever in Lord of the Rings as Mt Doom. Tongariro National Park is home to three impress­ive beasts of vol­ca­noes; Mt Ruapehu, Mt Ngaur­uhoe and Mt Tongariro itself. When the clouds and rain hugs the tower­ing slope of the moun­tains you would be fooled into believ­ing there are not moun­tains here at all. Even with a fine mist of per­sist­ent rain cross­ing gently over the peaks this is an impress­ive place to be. We arrived to just such a moun­tain­less land­scape and Whakapapa DOC camp­site (pro­nounced Fakapapa in Maori) was a great place to reside in bad weather. We recom­mend it for its loc­a­tion, wil­der­ness feel, well stocked shop and pleas­ant staff.

My Ruapehu behind the clouds

The Tongariro Cross­ing from Mt Ngaur­uhoe to Mt Tongariro is talked about by every­one here. “Have you done it?” “Are you doing it?” But the main con­cern is not your lazi­ness level it is the weather con­di­tions. Sadly for us it was still in the realms of exper­i­enced trampers with all the gear in early spring. Ski­ing is still pos­sible in Septem­ber, but not a patch in the European Alps so we opted for a beau­ti­ful tramp through heath­land to an impress­ive water­fall to take in views of the three mountains.

 

Our three hour tramp and for James that meant “Scrog­gin’ time” again.

On the south­ern slopes Mt Ruapehu, Ohak­une is another lovely spot within the National Park. The town has a Ver­bier vibe about, with shops aimed towards the moneyed crowd. There is a decent DOC site and a lovely Hol­i­day Park with carved wooden basins in the amen­it­ies, lux­ury. The walk­ing track to Waitonga Falls has impress­ive views of this moun­tain and great reflec­tions on a still day. The LOTR loc­a­tion for Gollum’s water­fall was filmed in these parts.

Mt Ruapehu mirrored in the water near Ohakune

The vol­canic heart of North Island is both impress­ive and intriguing and makes you feel small and power­less. You again an  under­stand­ing of how much we take the ‘soft side’ of nature for gran­ted. Here you do not have this lux­ury as the hos­til­ity of the envir­on­ment is all encom­passing. Ulti­mately it gives you an new per­spect­ive on the world we live in and its ulti­mate prowess.

Cesca

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