Hi all, Well my first impressions of Wai-O-Tapu were slighty mixed to be fair. It seemed a lovely place and it was strange to see random steam just bellowing out of random spots in the earth. However, the sulphur in the atmosphere it creates form the goeothermal activity below the soil gives Wai-O-Tapu a distinctive smell and not a nice one at that....! It stunk of eggs. Its meant to only really be noticable when you first arrive - rubbish. That's just what the leaflets tell you. Wai-O-Tapu was a tiny place so we headed straight for the tourist attraction that I was here to see and that was the Thermal Wonderland and imparticular the Lady Knox Geyser erupting. We arrived minutes too late as the geyser goes off at 10.15am every day. So we decided to set up camp in the carpark for the day and kick back, read, sit in the sun and relax all day. This paid to our advantage in the end as during the afternoon this lovely old couple saw us in the back of the van reading and walked up and said "have you already seem the geyser?". I replied that we had just missed it and that we were going to return in the morning to see it. "Excellent, well here you go" and handed us two tickets to get into the geyser in the morning which were worth $50. We enthusiastically thanked the OAP's and they wandered off happy - result. It some time pays to look like a couple of gypo's (am I allowed to say that in this politically correct world? - oh well..!) We returned in the morning to see the geyser erupt and in all honesty I'm glad that I have witnessed it but I'm also very glad I didn't have to pay for it either. This chap gave a speech at the front about how the geyser was formed, the history of it etc etc and then dropped and bar of soap in the geyser. A few minutes later, it erupted and reached a height of around 15-20 metres. After five minutes or so everyone started to leave. After this we went and visited the violent and spectacular boiling hot mud pool, the biggest in NZ. This was far more entertaining for some reason. It was just a small lake of mub that looked like the chocolate topping of a Sara Lee Triple Chocolate Cake that was in a saucepan boiling and spitting at every one. It was fascinating for no particular reason, as it was just mud that was being boiled by the geothermic activity below it...! The smallest things hey. After this we headed off down the road to Rotorua. Bye for now Miffy x x x