In the morning we visited the buried village of Te Waira, which has been excavated from the Mount Tarawera eruption of 1886. We looked around the museum and then the archaeological sites from the original village. The volcanic eruption destroyed the village and the 8th wonder of the world, the Pink and White Terraces (natural stepped silica pools filled with thermal waters) and killed over 120 people. The fallout buried 8000 squared Km of surrounding counrtyside! We then had Devonshire Tea, to warm up! Yummy!

In the afternoon we went to Hell's Gate, a geothermal park. It was given the name Hells Gate by the playwrite George Bernard Shaw after he visited the area in the 1900's. The park has 50 acres of fumeroles, boiling mud, land coral and hot waterfalls. The reserve was formed 10,000 years ago and the heat source is 1.5-2km below the surface (usually over 10km in other geothermal areas). The temperatures of the pools ranged from 48 to 145 degrees!