Another brilliant experience in the North Island is to visit some of the thermal areas. The area is very volcanic, one major eruption happening as recently as 1995. As you drive through the countryside, you see plumes of steam coming out of the ground and there is a distinctly bad egg smell in the air (which we both said was not us). At the most spectacular places, you can see geysers and silica formations as well as bubbling mud pools. The ground itself is hot and you can only walk on the walkways as new craters form often and the steam can reach over 150 degrees. As we had seen larger geysers in Iceland, and as all these places are very dear, we chose two places to visit, Okurei Korako and the Craters of the Moon.
The Craters of the Moon is a vast crater formed by an old volcano. You walk round this valley, there are new small craters which hiss with the steam coming out. Sometimes they block up and then there is a mini eruption throwing hot pumice stones into the air. Needless to say we waited and waited as close as we could but the craters chose not to erupt while we were there. There are also bubbling pools of mud, where the hot acidic steam has dissolved the surrounding rocks. Few plants grow around this area because they cannot cope with the hot acidic ground.
Okurei was very spectacular, with colourful silica terraces, small geysers and a long white crystalline cliff as well as beautiful walks past huge tree ferns and a crystal clear lake.
