What we were not aware of, was that there isn't just one active volcano dominating the city, nor is there two, but three volcano's, all connected together. It was these three volcanoes that erupted on that fateful night in 1886. The white hot ash covered the village and probably about 2 meters fell over the village.. just huge amounts. After learning a lot about the destruction a volcano can cause, we headed off (minus Raymond) to a place called Hell's Gate. This was another Geo-thermal restoration area but for one the name is awesome (there is a reason for it) and you can also bathe in Sulphur and Mud pools - quality!
The reason for calling this special place Hell's Gate, is that the earths crust is an awful lot thinner than any other normal part on the planet. This specific area within a few kilometers distance, has a 'Magma spike' (pretty damn not, we are talking thousands of degrees.. I think) is literally 2.5km below where we were standing.. hence the hot pools and hot lakes. If that made no sense, which is likely, I shall let Wikipedia explain better:
"Hell's Gate", is Rotorua's most active geothermal area on state highway 30, between Lake Rotorua and Lake Rotoiti in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. It includes many geothermal features including steaming lakes, mudpools, fumaroles, a mud volcano and Kakahi, the largest hot waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere.
Pretty crazy stuff hey!?
After that Chaggie went for a bathe in a Sulphur pool which was over 40 degrees Celsius.. pretty hot! We were there for a good 20 minutes which was more than enough, it was way too hot for us Pommy's!We then headed back to Jan's, stopping off to get some food from the local shopping centre as we were cooking for her this evening!
Yet another wonderful cooking performance from Staggie which finished off the day nicely!
Chaggie x
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