Day 166 - Orakei Korako thermal reserve & Waikite Valley thermal pools and campsite, North Island - Friday 30th March 2012

We chilled out in Taupo town in the morning and just had a wander around the town and the lake and then drove off toward the Aratiatia rapids; after about ten minutes we had reached our spot. Basically the Aratiatia rapids are just really very small pool / pockets of water and not very much happens until 2 o'clock when the main dam opens - then it goes crazy!! We arrived at about 1:40pm and already people were on the bridge and getting very excited. We parked the camper and made our way to the bridge, this is when I realised that all the people getting excited were a little older than Soph and myself… Anyway, at the end of the bridge facing the dam there was a timer counting down from 5 minutes… you could cut the tension with a banana!! Before we knew it - it was nearly there 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….. Then the dam opened and filled the little pools and pockets with water and then… well that was it really, so we took some pictures and got back in the camper!

Then we started our journey to Orakei Korako cave and Thermal Park. This place was my favourite place so far in our whole NZ trip, to me, it's what NZ is all about; stunning scenery, natural springs, gushing geysers, a geothermal cave, boiling and spitting mud pools. The place was awesome, believe it or not, an amazing 20 million litres of hot water flow over the silica terraces every day! It was so impressive that it's actually hard to fit it all into your eye sight because so much is going on. One downfall however is the smell - it stinks of rotten eggs, I think it's the sulphur, or other minerals being realised from the ground. We spent ages walking round the place and of course Soph took about a million pic's! When we eventually left the park we even noticed that the car park had steam vents and they too were going crazy with steam pouring out everywhere!

Tonight we had decided to drive quite a way into the bush to stay at Camp Waikite Valley Holiday Park as were had been told that it was an amazing campsite - it didn't let us down. The campsite was next to a huge natural geyser that they had used to their benefit; the water in the geyser comes out of the ground at 98 degrees, so they divert the water down through their own pipes and mix it with cooler spring water thus reducing the natural volcanic water to a comfortable 38 degrees. Then the water is distributed to six different pools so that the campers can bathe in natural waters with natural minerals as long as they like!!! It was soooo cool and by far the best campsite in NZ!! Soph started telling me how good this water was for us and our skin, mind, body and soul so I shaved for the first time in four weeks, so did Soph (not her face, her legs and stuff!!) and we laid in the pools for hours, it was really relaxing! After we had dinner Soph suggested that we do a volcanic, geothermal mud face mask; well me being the big tough guy that I am, I finished clipping my nails and caked the stuff on my face! What a relaxing night!