Improving Picture

After lunch the weather seems to be breaking a little and we head off for the Waimangu Volcanic Valley which we have both been keen to see.

The volcanic valley is part of a series of active Rhyolitic volcanoes around the Rotorua area which mostly manifest themselves as geysers and hot springs but occasionally have big eruptions (such as the Mt Tarwera eruption at the buried village).

We are pretty much the only people here but in true geologists spirit we head out and down the valley anyway.  Stopping off to see steaming hot thermal pools and fuming fumaroles we have a great time seeing some geology in action.

As we continue down the valley we see every more impressive steaming pools covered in different multi-coloured algae.

We also see some impressive ‘waterfalls’ of silica formed by precipitation of the mineral rich hot water over the last hundred years or so.

Altogether it was a brilliant afternoon looking at some amazing geology and we even managed to get some sunshine.

Mr M