Emma Sees New Lands!: White Island (11th Feb)

So by the time I went to bed last night I had decided that I was going to blow the budget and take a trip out to NZs only active volcano, White Island. I had booked myself in for a 3pm flight so kinda had most of the day to do stuff. First off I headed to the thermal wonderland of Waiotapu.

Its interesting cause they guarantee that the main geyser, Lady Knox, will go off every morning at 10.15am. Now surely common sense would prevail and somewhere you would think that mother nature doesn’t really work to this kinda timetable, wouldn’t you, surely?? Well apparently common sense doesn’t really prevail for all the American and Chinese tourists that turned up for the event (sorry guys!).

THE geyser!

Pretty much as soon as I got there I realized I shouldn’t have gone! The deal was you had to turn up and park, then head down the hill to the ticket office before heading back to your car and driving 5 mins up the road to the geyser, showing your ticket and parking again before joining maybe 400 people to watch the geyser go off. Can you see where this is all going?

So there I was 20 mins early knowing full well that there would have to be some outside intervention for this to occur to a timetable. As the ‘launch’ time got closer people were gearing up with their cameras and video cameras, complaining in some cases that it was running late (!).

When the guy in charge of the event actually did turn up we got this fantastic speal on the geyser before he poured 300g of soap powder down into the geyser and waited for the eruption. Ok, so it was good, I think…… I think if perhaps you had no idea what t was all about it would be really good but ……….. it was just a real tourist trap.

The champagne pool

The park itself was very good with lots of different geothermal events going on, there was a great walk around the site which was lovely, but because everyone else was pretty much doing the same walk at pretty much the same time it was kinda busy.
Afterwards I thought I would have enough time to head off to the buried village, which was buried when Mt Tarawera erupted in 1886.

A thermal wonderland

No entry!! Oh really??

It was an interesting site although the museum was more interesting that the actual site (I don’t think they had been to Pompeii) but all the same interesting. It was a real scoot around though cause I had to be back in Rotorua for 2.45pm. There was a great view point 300m further up the road that had a fab view of the volcano and the lake, there were lots of people stopping for pictures and I asked someone to take a pic of me, so where the volcano was is where my head is!! Its very much appreciated, but it was the volcano I was after!

Mt Tarawera

2.40pm saw me hurtling to Rotorua at the speed of light to get the helicopter over to White Island. There was only 2 others on the flight and the pilot. I had tried the ‘I’m a volcanologist’ card for a discount but no joy. :-(

Similar to when I did the helicopter trip in Las Vegas, they weigh you all collectively to see how much fuel then need (I’m guessing). I’m flying out with a couple from Ireland and as we get out to the helicopter the girl asks if she can ride up front, there was no beating around the bush with the pilot, he just told her she was too heavy for the outbound flight to ride up front, it does pay to be a bit slimmer at times and that’s how I ended up riding shotgun (again). The trip out to White Island took around 40 mins and some of the sights we passed on the way were fabulous. As we got closer the island just looked incredible, really very beautiful. We circled over the main volcanic area and then landed for our walk around. We got really up close to all the volcanic areas, much closer than I think perhaps we should have. However, I did sign something when I was back at the base, although of course I didn’t read it! I’m sure it wasn’t that important, and if it was I probably wouldn’t be about to re-read it anyway huh??

So White Island is an active volcano and a very beautiful one at that, some fantastic colours to be seen, and in true Emma style I did the trip in mini skirt and vest top. I do wear other things while I’m away, honest! But it is soooooo hot here at the mo! I have a fab photo of mini skirt, vest top, sneakers and hard hat in front of the main islands steaming vent! A real volcanologist, right? Of course right!