A day of thermal adventures and onto Taupo

We had booked a trip to Wai-o-Tapu thermal reserve on Monday morning. Not knowing what to expect we waited at the pick up point for our bus to pick us up. Her name was Nina and she was lovely! She picked us up and drove us out of town south to the thermal field known as Wai-o-Tapu. It was a glorious blue sky day with not a cloud in the sky, this all changed as we reached Lady Knox Geyser, a thick mist was hanging over the area and it was difficult to appreciate the Geyser and its surrounding area as you couldn't see much at all. 

The Geyser was slightly disappointing as in the brochure it stated it went off at 1015am every day, we wondered how the geyser had such good time management , turns out they put some surfactant in the top at 1015 everyday to make an artificial eruption. We weren't sure about this, it feels like it makes it less of a natural wonder and more like man had manipulated it to make more money. It was still quite spectacular and interesting to learn how it was found by the prisoners in the late 1800s

Very foggy at lady Knox

We got to the thermal field and decided to walk the whole park. The fog was till thick and we couldn't see much 

Artists palette

It was also super cold 

The champagne pool

We decided to go for a cup of tea and a hot chocolate at the cafe, give it 30 minutes in the hope the fog would lift and then we'd walk the park again.

It worked!! Here's me at artists palette again!

And Amy at the champagne pool

Another bright green sulphur pool

A cool hot and cold lake at the 'secret spot' you could swim here but it felt a little cold in the air!!

We came back with Nina at 1.30pm. She taught us lots about the surrounding area and offered us some tips for our last day in Rotorua. We decided to take a walk to the Redwoods forest in the afternoon. This was an hour walk out of town but definitely worth it. 

Lake Rotorua. 

The redwoods forest

The trees were so tall and the light shone through them casting lovely shadows on the ground. It was getting to sunset and this meant whilst it was getting a little dark the light was a really lovely colour

We made it to a look out point just in time

The view over lake Rotorua

We made it!

Wandering through thermal fields home

Such a perculiar, eerie place 

We can't thank the guys at Rock solid backpackers, we had a lovely stay and some brilliant nights sleep. The next day it was on to Taupo. I had booked to do a skydive so felt apprehensive from the moment we got in the bus 

This was not to be though. It was cancelled due to bad weather so instead we set off on a walk to find Huka falls. 

Off we go!

It was a 2.5 hour walk each way to the falls, we also went a bit further to the Huka Honey Hive where we tasted some honey and tried some Mead (honey wine) there were bee hives you could look it and we learnt all about how they make the honey in the hive! After this educational experience we wandered back to our hostel to cook dinner 

We made it!

 Huka falls

We were to be slightly disappointed again though when the Tongariro crossing was cancelled for the next day due to bad weather. It's one of the things we really wanted to do during our stay in Taupo so hopefully tomorrow!