Mud Pools, Lady Knox Geyser & Huka Falls

Tour Day #3 started with my first rain-camping experience. The only benefit of the rain was it partially drowning out the late-night celebrations of the paragliding club that was camping in the site next to ours.
The dreary start was made better by Sam & Janelle making us eggs and bacon for breakfast! But I could tell I was a little out of it when I managed to pour a large amount of salt into my coffee, instead of sugar. Thankfully, my kind camp mates didn’t allow me to drink it, despite the certain comedic value it would have provided.

We packed up our wet tents and got onto the road to make sure we arrived at the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland in time to see the Lady Knox Geyser go off at 10:15. We stopped to see the largest mud pool in NZ before joining the large crowd seated around the white cone of the geyser. We were all prepared to be amazed by the entirely ‘natural’ wonder of a geyser erupting with Old Faithful-like predictability. Imagine our surprise when 2 women came out to stand beside the cone - surely a dangerous position given the imminent explosion of steaming hot water!. They proceeded to explain that Waiotapu was once a prison labor camp, and men washing their clothes in the warm thermal spring discovered that their laundry soap would cause the spring to erupt. Obviously, none of us had done our research about the Lady Knox ahead of time, so we watched in bemusement as they brought out a big bag of soap and poured it into the white cone to generate a 20m fountain. Impressive? Interesting? Sure! But not at all what we expected.

We hiked around the beautiful Geothermal Park afterward (see a later post about this) and continued on towards Taupo. We stopped at Huka Falls to see the incredible flow of icy blue water rumble through the gorge and erupt out over the shallow falls.

Daily Observations:
- Turns out, you can fit bus through there 😊
- Surprisingly, the Waiotapu Thermal Park and all its bubbling, steaming features had nothing on the sulphur smell at our campsite in Rotorua

* Group photo credit to AineRead more