New Zealand sits on the Ring of Fire, which is a belt of active volcanoes and tectonic plate boundaries in the basin of Pacific Ocean. Also known as Circum-Pacific Belt, the Ring of Fire is home to 75% of the world’s volcanoes and 90% of the earth’s earthquakes.
Due to the country’s geographical location, New Zealand is a hotbed for geothermal activity. Orakei Korako is the first of two geothermal attraction we visited during our trip to North Island or Te Ika-a-Maui.
Orakei Korako Geothermal Park and Cave is off the beaten track in a valley north of Taupo, a 30-minutes drive away. Our interest was piqued by Lonely Planet’s description of the place as ‘arguably the best geothermal area left in New Zealand’.
The visitor centre has an outdoor cafe facing the geothermal park. We initially planned to have hot beverage and snacks after our walk but aborted the idea due to bad weather.
By booking our tickets online, we enjoyed a 10% discount. Tickets are priced at NZ$39/adult, NZ$15/child or NZ$98 for a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children). This includes park admission and a 2-way ferry ride.
A short 5-minutes ferry ride took us across Lake Ohakuri to the geothermal fields. The park is pretty big with around 2.5km of paths and boardwalks which takes around an hour to complete. For safety reasons, visitors have to follow the designated path to take in the sights of geysers, mud pools and silica terraces.
Steaming hot water at my feet at one section of the boardwalk and steam observed as we walked along the path. Temperature around the park is generally 2 to 3 degC warmer due to the geothermal.
At the rainbow lookout where to the right we can see hot water that seems to ‘trickle’ across the Emerald Terrace. This water flowing into Lake Ohakuri can be as high as almost 20 million litres a day. Information boards are strategically located with descriptions in English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
A view of the Rainbow Terrace from the boardwalk. The silica terraces here are in a medley of colours due to the growth of black, green and yellow algae. These microbial mats grows in temperatures between 35 – 49 degrees Celsius, and are continually changing in response to the environment.
The Rainbow Cascade Terrace. Have a read on Orakei Korako’s official website’s informative write-up on Geothermal Formation and Geothermal Chemistry. That will give a better understanding of these natural landscape.
It is easy to see the elephant in this one.
Known as The Golden Fleece or Te Kapua (The Cloud), this is the third of the fault scarps formed in 131 AD. The area is extremely unpredictable as numerous geysers have erupted at the base on its right hand corner.
Heavy rain started pouring down soon after we reached Artist’s Palette Lookout.
We were unable to advance further with thick dark clouds looming over the horizon. Regrettably we had to give up on the second part of the circuitous route to the geothermal cave. Once the rain became lighter, we made a quick dash for the ferry. A view at the visitor centre as we were making our way back.
Would have loved to visit Ruatapu Cave as it is one of only two geothermal caves in the world!
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Read about my trip itinerary and the places visited in New Zealand North Island 2019 .
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