The park charges NZ$27.50 per person admission (about US$15.00) and you can see the entire thing in two to three hours. It was well worth it.
A panorama of one section of the park. The different and striking colors you'll see throughout this park come from a wide variety of minerals and elements present, either in the geothermally heated water or in the hot gases venting from deep underground.
The Artist's Palette, a bizarre-looking multicolored pool of geothermally heated water:
Some of these geothermal features will attract birds and wildlife. Here's a pied stilt foraging in one of the pools.
Walking across the Silica Terrace:
Don't say they didn't warn you:
The famous "Champagne Pool" at Waiotapu: This enormous and deep pool features surface temperatures of 74C (about 165F). At the very bottom of the pool, the water is superheated to as much as 230C, more than 400F!
In the photo below you can see the bubbles coming up out of the Champagne Pool, thanks to the superheated water deep below. You had better not dip your toe into this pool!
The Champagne pool, from a distance:
Steam coming off the champagne pool:
Laura, next to the Devil's Bath, one of the most visually striking sights in this park. It looks like somebody melted down a truckload of green highlighter pens and dumped the goo here.
An example of how geothermal energy can cause lazy parenting. Mynahs and swallows love to nest in the walls of this crater, because the high temperatures here allow them to leave their eggs instead of having to sit on them all day!
From the park, you can see in the distance the cooling tower at the Ohaaki geothermal power plant, which is one of many geothermal power stations in this country. Because New Zealand is so volcanically active, it is one of the very few countries in the world that has been able to harness geothermal energy on a large scale.
I guess when you think about all this natural energy available for use, a little sulphur odor here and there doesn't seem quite so bad after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment