We're sitting here in a sort of amphitheatre with hundreds of other terrorists waiting for the Lady Knox Geyser to erupt. It erupts at 10.15am daily. How convenient is that? If I didn't know better I would think Walt Disney had set this up. Seriously the whole area around here is thermal, there are vents blowing steam out of the ground all over the place, more after the NZ version of Olde Faithful erupts.
Well the eruption is over for today, it wasn't Walt Disney but not far from it. Here's the scoop. During WW I German prisoners were interned here and were in a work camp clearing brush and planting a huge pine forest. They found what was a hot spring and were using it. To do their laundry. The use of soaps caused the surface tension to release and instead of a gurgling hot spring the thing erupted much to their surprise and blew their clothes way up in the air. Boys being boys they piled rocks around the spring to direct the water higher to see how high they could get their clothes to fly. These days in the interest of tourism the guide comes out and gives a nice talk and puts some sort of natural stuff down the geyser which does the same thing as the soap.
Just when you think you've seen it all, we stopped at another little place to have our lunch. A quaint little tea place with chickens and peacocks running around. I had the loveliest curried lamb pie (pastry to make your mouth water) and Larry had the steak and mushroom. We had a little begger who was the male peacock. He was gorgeous but naughty trying to steal our lunch. Guess he thought his looks could get him anything. After that, there was another walk through a thermal field that had many hot spots. He gave us a thermal recorder. The. Highest was 43 degrees right near where we were standing. Would you believe the I-pad died and we forgot the camera . Drat! Although we had taken many pictures at the other thermal field this one was cheaper $10 , less tourists, and much more natural, I would have liked pictures of this. There was a place where the cliff, called the singing cliff had holes in it where the steam came out and sounded like signing. When we got to it, I said sshh, listen to it, to Larry and then he farted, unintentionally. Typical Larry. Anyways, we did here them sing.
When we got back the owner of the tea shop was quite a character with a great sense of humour. He has animals all over the place outside and I remarked that the only thing missing was a dog. He said he has a Labradoodle who wasn't terribly smart. Apparently, he was making love to their other dog and put his hip out, so was in hospital. Guess he didn't know how to do it properly.
After we were on our way to our motel in Taupo when we saw a sign for the Huku Falls. So we saw them briefly and they were quite spectacular. Apparently, the Wairakei River, being the longest river in N.Z., runs out to the sea and has a huge power plant here. We passed a large thermal plant which gets it's energy from the hot springs underground. Five percent of NZ's power is thermal. Sorry no pics.
Lovely place where we are staying. Huge apartment with an efficiency kitchen , large living room, big kitchen table, big bedroom and very nice bathroom. Furniture is lovely. Guess how much? Come on, guess how much? Don't be shy now. IT Was, wait for it, was, $100 a night. Can you believe it? I Can't. So we bought some marinated lamb chops for the Barbie. Couple next door are from Toronto. Cool! Maybe we will have a drink with them tonite.
Tomorrow, bungee jumping and hot springs.
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