In pictures: The weird colours of Rotorua’s Wai-O-Tapu
There’s a lot going on under the surface in New Zealand, and one of the island’s geothermal hotspots (in more ways than one) is Rotorua. Outside the city, Wai O Tapu (meaning ‘Sacred Waters’ in Maori) is billed as a ‘thermal wonderland’ – a theme park where the attractions are all natural, even though you sometimes feel like you’re on another planet. Walking routes around the park take you past bubbling mud, sulphur waterfalls, steaming vents and lakes in neon oranges, yellows and greens, given their colour by mineral deposits. Some of the highlights are the Champagne Pool, where tiny bubbles make it look like a huge lake of bubbly, and the Lady Knox Geyser. Though you need to time your visit well to watch her erupt – she only goes off once a day, at 10.15am, shooting out boiling water 20 metres into the air.
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Awesome shots. That colour is amazing.
It was a really strange place – hard to believe it all came about naturally.
ya . . .its . . .really . . .amazing . . .
Lovely pictures – they remind me of Iceland!
Yes there’s definitely similarities to the landscape in Iceland – though it was a bit warmer, the only time I’ve been to Iceland was one November and it was freezing!
Great shots!
Thanks, it was a great subject to photograph with all the strange colours.
Looks like another planet… beautiful and scary!
It does! You really get a feel for how much is going on under the surface in New Zealand.
It looks so beautiful, strange how predictable the eruption is.
I just looked it up and apparently it’s ‘induced’ to erupt every day by putting soap in it – I feel a bit cheated now!
I suppose it has to be reliable for the tourists. Not quite sure I approve!
Me neither! Very sneaky.
Hi – I *THINK* it is mostly because they need to relieve the underground pressure in a controlled mini-eruption each day rather than run the risk of a uncontrolled ‘event’ that could be dangerous. Of course – can’t hurt as a tourist attraction either.
Didn’t think of that but it does make sense, I might let them off then!
I thought it was Yellowstone National Park… nice to know there are other places in the world like that too!
I really want to visit Yellowstone – it looks so amazing in photos. I’ve got a US trip planned for next spring so will have to try and fit it in.
Once again unbeliable!! Great looks and nice pictures! Perfect!!
Thanks, it’s worth a visit if you are ever in New Zealand!
Reblogged this on Anything Interesting on WordPress and commented:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wai-O-Tapu
Thanks for reblogging!
You are welcome Lucy
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Incredible pics, it really does look like another planet. I have a friend who just moved to New Zealand, I may tell him to check this out!
Thanks, what you can’t see from the photos was the heat and the sulphur smells too which made it seem even more alien!
Gorgeous pix, Lucy. I had relatives who lived near these springs, always wanted to visit but that’s now out of the question – so your photographs and descriptions are the next best thing: thank you!
My home used to be in the next county to your home one … Small world! Hope you continue to thrive on exploring it.
Nice to meet someone from my part of the world! I really loved New Zealand – and what a great place for your relatives to live in – but it’s still always nice to be home too.
Nice Article
Thanks for visiting.
Interesting post! Never knew a place like this exists. There are really lots of interesting facts and places in this place where we live in. I find it really awesome. Thanks for sharing!
There are so many amazing places to see in this world, glad to introduce you to a new one!
These pictures are scarily amazing.
Thanks, it was quite an unbelievable looking place.
Love this blog Luce – I visited the park about 6 years ago now and it bought back some great memories, New Zealand is a place that makes you really feel alive !
Thanks Justine, it certainly does – the scenery down there is out of this world.
Brings back some great memories of my trips to NZ, it’s such a majestic place full of amazing colour and beauty. Great pics.
Glad to bring back some memories – I’ve been enjoying revisiting my trip on the site, though is making me want to go back again.
Way cool — Mother Nature can be quite unpredictable, huh?
It can be a very strange world!
Beautiful shots! New Zealand is definitely on my bucket list.
http://stepstochangetheworld.wordpress.com/
It’s so worth a visit – hope you make it out there someday.
Beautiful! Have you seen the pink lake in Senegal?
I saw a photo of it recently for the first time, an amazing sight, the colours there are even more unreal-looking!
Realy great colors. Come sometimes and check my pictures: http://posvudusha.wordpress.com/
Thanks, you have some really beautiful photos, I look forward to checking them out.
how lovely! i have been there, too, and i was amazed at how sureal everything looked, despite its realness! great shots, make me want to go back! how long are you staying in new zealand?
It is such a surreal place. I’m home now but had six weeks travelling around New Zealand – long enough to see a lot but not everything so there’ll have to be a return visit one day!
Hi Lucy,
Awesome digital pictures! Can’t wait to see your shots when you return to New Zealand! What do you think? Love your blog! http://www.segmation.wordpress.com
Hi, I would love to go back to New Zealand some day – the travel wish list is so long though it’s hard to fit everything in!
wow! these are gorgeous and very unique
Thanks, it was such an unusual place, so different to the green landscape you imagine for New Zealand.
So cool — looks like some of the places in Yosemite …
So I hear, I am going to be in the States next spring so hope to make it to Yosemite then.
This is what I love about these blogs: getting to see things I otherwise wouldn’t even know exist! Thank you for these wonderful photos!
Thanks, glad to introduce you to this part of the world!
Amazing landscape, it really does look like another planet! Great shots – thanks for sharing and congrats on being freshly pressed!
Thanks, it’s been a busy day! So glad to see so many new visitors and find all these new sites to check out.
Awesome!!
Thanks, it’s an amazing place.
Great photos. Thanks for sharing. Connie
http://7thandvine.wordpress.com/
Thanks, glad you liked them.
Yes, interesting impressions.
Thanks for stopping by the site.
Cool photos, and congrats on being freshly pressed.
Thanks, it’s been great to share it with so many people!
Very nice! I’m visiting New Zealand in November, and spotting this on Freshly pressed made me have a quick look!
Hope you have a great trip – for a photographer it really is a dream destination, make sure you take a lot of memory cards!
Yay, A freshly pressed that made me happy! Love Wai-O-Tapu. Amazing stuff
Thanks, it’s a great place. Love your site by the way, I’ve just been drooling over some of the those cupcake photos!
wonderful! We spent 6 months living in NZ, Wai-O-Tapu was a top of the list place
OMG…you have 2 photos so similar to the photo on my blog!!! I swear I didn’t steal yours!!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!! Well, we all went to NZ!!!
Cheers
http://www.edgymix.com
Haha, I’m sure you didn’t! It’s a pretty iconic NZ sight, I remember seeing some photos before I went out there and thinking ‘I have got to see that’.
Wow! what a lovely place and what remarkable shots!
Thanks, it’s a great place to photograph – so much going on.
Hi Lucy. I travelled around NZ for the Rugby World Cup in September last year & took a visit to Wai-O-Tapu. It was amazing to see what nature can do. NZ is such a diverse place, I loved it, and dream every day of returning.
Your pics are really cool, shows it off very well!
Hi, glad you enjoyed New Zealand – it really is so diverse, with such a mix of landscapes in a relatively small area. I’d love to go back sometime too.
Ah, I only got to see Rotorua itself – no car to go exploring and just a quick whizz through the place – but even the town itself had some pretty spectacular sights. After these pics, I think I’ll have to go back!
I think I spent most of my time in Rotorua town in the hot springs, that geothermal energy comes in very useful!
First I thought this is from another Planet
Nice Photos!
It is like you’d imagine being on Mars or somewhere to be – would make a great film set!
You´re right
seeing the photos makes me miss NZ more… i was just there for like 2 months and man, there are indeed lots of sheeps and horses compared to the human population
…
Wicked photos you got there.
Thanks, going through all my photos of the trip makes me want to go back too.
One more place to add to the bucket list of vacations.
It’s always a long list, isn’t it? There are so many places I still want to see.
Beautiful. Reminds me of the Seven Hells of Beppu, Japan. Will definitely add this to my travel wish list.
I only had a couple of days in Japan and would like to go back someday, and will definitely check that place out.
Yes its worth a visit. They also have a mud onsen(hot spring) there. Not to hot so people can actually go in and enjoy.
Great post- I also loved our visit there. Check it out here:
http://lizabethlacey.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/nz-6-rotoruas-geothermal-wonderland/
Congrats on being Freshly pressed!
Thank you. Love your photos too, that one green pool looks almost fluorescent!
I know right?! Totally surreal…
Great photos! In Indonesia there’s also a place like that. Named ‘Kawah Putih’ or White Crater in Ciwidey, West Java. Perhaps one day you can visit there
I’ve not been to Java yet but will definitely look that up when I do, thanks for the tip.
it’s really amazing… bagak hian puang
Thanks, glad you liked it.
warm!
Very – the water in the Champagne Pool is apparently about 73°C!
Awesome shots, Lucy! Fascinating!
Thanks, it’s been great to introduce more people to this great bit of the world!
What great pics – looks like a dream trip – i love your outfits as always
I had a fantastic trip thanks – more New Zealand posts to come too!
Great photos – I live in New Zealand, and I think you did a great job of capturing the atmosphere
How’d you go with the smell? 
Thanks, the smell wasn’t quite as bad as I expected, you did get a few wafts of sulphury steam though which wasn’t the nicest!
I live in Adelaide and have been meaning to go to New Zealand so many times. The images might just be the push.
It really it worth a visit – though I’ve got so much of Europe to see and keep travelling further afield, it’s easy to put off seeing things that are nearby (well nearby in terms of Australian scales of distance anyway!).
you are very lucky to see the beauty of nature
Thanks, places like this do make you realise how amazing nature is.
Reblogged this on Voices and Visions.
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no worries. i went to rotorua last year but never managed to capture such amazing shots
Oh, now I really want to visit this place. New Zealand uses Geothermal energy quite effectively, doesn’t it. Is there a power plant near this place?
Yes I think the area around Rotorua and Taupo uses geothermal power a lot. I’ve been to Iceland too and they make a really good use of it there too.
so amazing!
It was a really unreal site to explore.
Beautiful photos. I was in Rotorua when I was a child, but I don’t think we were at Wai O Tapu. These pictures really make me want to go back with a camera!
I’d seen a photo of it when I was researching my NZ trip and knew I had to go and see it – hope you make it back some day.
Thanks, I hope so too!
Amazing stuff. It must’ve been such a trill to see nature at its greatest.
Thanks, I love to visit places like this – I did a geography degree and it really brings what I studied to life.
When I was a kid we used to go on family holidays to Rotorua – it’s about 150 miles from where I was brought up, in New Zealand. Always a special place for the thermal springs, but we never got to Waiotapu. I recall many others, though – some wonderful childhood memories. I was last in Rotorua about five or six years ago, briefly. I don’t know whether it’s simply the memories of youth, but it’s become very big and commercialised by comparison with what I remember.
What a great part of the world to come from! Rotorua is pretty busy now, it’s gotten more famous and is very much on the tourist trail. It’s still a good place to visit but I imagine you’d find it’s changed a lot.
The earth is always able to surprise us!! This is both beautiful and strange, absolutly awsome!
Very true! It’s amazing to think about what’s going on in the ground underneath our feet!
You captured some interesting photos. I really do enjoy them.
Katie
http://katieraspberry.wordpress.com/
MontrealDSL
Thanks for visiting!
Beautiful pictures! The colours are awesome!
Thanks, they almost don’t look real do they? (no Photoshopping though, honest!)
Amazing photos (:
Thanks, it’s a very photogenic place!
what color, what richness! lovely, thanks for sharing…
The colours were so unusual, I couldn’t resist taking stacks of photos!
yes, must be a case of nature doing what it knows best – to bring life while creating beauty… cheers to us!
Wow! I did the Tongariro day walk last year and was blown away with the Emerald Lakes and Ngauruhoe Mountain, but this one, aah…this is even more amazing! The next time I’m in New Zealand, Rotorua will be my first stop! Thanks for sharing the pics!
That’s a really great hike too – the whole landscape in that part of New Zealand is spectacular.
Amazing place and shoots!!
Thanks, I’ve enjoyed sharing the photos!
Amazing shots Lucy! So surreal and otherworldly!
Thanks Madhu, it was a really unusual place.
I was there five years ago and found it fascinating too! I hope you had a chance to sit in some of the hot springs while you were there, that was a nice treat
I did spend an afternoon in the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua, so relaxing soaking in the warm water in the sun!
Great photos! So otherworldly – it must be something that’s quite amazing to see.
Otherworldly is definitely right, it’s such a change from the landscapes here in the UK.
I love the colors in these pictures. I hope I get the chance to visit this in person someday.
Thanks, the colours are even more striking in person, hope you do get to make the trip one day.
It does look like another planet! New Zealand seems so beautiful, I can’t wait to visit it one day, thanks for sharing
!
It really is a beautiful country with so much to see out there.
Nice photos, great study of the colours & weirdness of the pools.
Great to see this on Freshly Pressed, and to see so many comments from people saying they had no idea we had this kind of landscape in NZ – for a tiny country we’ve got an astonishing variety of beautiful landscape. Don’t take my word for it though, come and see for yourselves
That’s so true, New Zealand certainly packs an amazing range of different landscapes into a small area and I’m really glad to introduce this one to a few more people – hope to come back one day and see some more of the country.
I really enjoyed my visit to Rotorua’s Wai-O-Tapu over 10 years ago – your post has made me want to go again – congratulations on being “Freshly Pressed”. – Pam @ AKP
Thanks – glad to bring back some good memories for you.
Awesome shots!
Thanks for visiting, glad you liked them.
Thanks Lucy. Great colours.
Thanks, I’ve enjoyed sharing the photos.
I miss New Zealand so much. Did you try the luge there too?
I did! It was great fun and the views were fantastic too.
I want to go there! I’ve been to Auckland once and I always wanna go back!
There’s so much to see in New Zealand it’s definitely worth another visit.
Thanks for sharing Lucy, great images, I hadn’t heard of it before, I’ve reposted one photo on my greenygrey.co.uk/blog wordpress blog with accreditation and links back here.
Hi, glad you like the shots and no problem to repost, thanks.
I went to Rotorua a few years ago, and I’ll never forget the smell! It took me ages to get the stench out of my clothes when I got home. The first time I washed them and put them in the dryer, the dryer seemed to amplify the smell and spread it around the whole house. i ended up having to get my mom to send over some scented dryer sheets from the U.S. which finally fixed that awful sulfur smell. Awesome pics by the way.
It is pretty pungent, especially when the wind blows the wrong way and you get the full head-on steamy sulphur smell! Luckily I managed to get the smell out ok though as wouldn’t want it hanging around!
Great pictures. Brings back memories of our visit there.
Thanks – and glad to bring back some good memories!
I want to kick myself for not booking a trip to NZ yet! :p Can’t wait to dive into the rugged outdoors!
If you like the outdoors and adventure then sure you’ll love it!
A lovely trip down memory lane. Thank you!
Thanks, I’ve been enjoying reliving my NZ trip, a couple more posts to come too!
Amaaaaaaazing pictures.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed them.
Your photos are so beautiful and surreal! I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand. I think this just confirmed that.
Thanks, and I hope you manage to make that trip to New Zealand!
Love it. Vibrant and beautiful.
I just loved the colours here, glad you did too!
Looks like Yellowstone.
So I hear – makes me even more keen to visit there now!
Very interesting! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Gerard, glad to share this part of the world.
Wow! So cool! These shots remind me of Yellowstone National Park. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the next post!
I would love to visit Yellowstone National Park – I love these sort of landscapes and it looks spectacular.
lovely shots as usual! And congrats on being Freshly Pressed!
Thanks Marina, it was a hectic day but great to be introduced to so many new blogs!
Reblogged this on geoliterate and commented:
It is incredible the places that some lucky ducks get to go to. Especially when they tickle ones geologic fancy! These are beautiful pics, and evidence of our humble beginnings. One theory of life’s origins were that they started in a pool like this – all minerals and chemical reactions, and that electricity (ie. lightning) catalysed the building of amino acids – the foundations of life. To this day, there are extremophiles which live in these pools – bacteria which have developed a tolerance to hostile environments (like high temperatures and low pH’s) and flourish therein. Thanks for your photos Lucy! (ontheluce.com)
Thanks for reblogging – and thanks for the geological background, it’s amazing to think how these things came about.
i’ve been to that place long ago and yes, they’re magnificent. as magnificent as your pics!
Hope you enjoyed your trip there too!
I would like to visit this awesome place.
Wow- I arrive here as your 218th “liker” Lucy! And it’s no surprise with great posts like this one.
Thanks’s Jo, this was on WordPress’ Freshly Pressed so I had a bit of a busy day! Back to normality now though!
Double wow Lucy! Well done you. I don’t tend to look at them so often as WordPress opens automatically into Blogs I Follow. Belated congrats!