New Zealand: Exploring Rotorua

Exploring the thermal pools in the early morning at Kuirau Park in Rotorua.

I’ve been trying to think of something cool to say about the geothermal activity of Rotorua since I arrived here. I’m sure that some devoted geologist or planetary scientist could tell me just how cool the bubbling vents are, or the yellow stone, or the black stone, or the smoking ground. But the fact of the matter is, to me, and to almost everyone else here, the geothermal activity just looks cool. It creates steamy underground openings coming out of random places in the city, creating a definite hazy mystique. The town just looks really really really cool.

The tourist industry thrives on this coolness, the mountains around it sip nutrients from the sulfur deposits, and the landscape is shaped by it. No matter where you go, the ground is made of black and yellow sulfur rocks, only differentiated by the heat at which the rock cooled. The black and yellow combined with the blue of the sulfur particles in the water and the natural greenery of the land create a sort of abstract color painting. Include the red bark of the California redwoods (which have a very high population density around here, ironically), and you can see almost every shade of the rainbow in a natural setting.

Even aside from the colors, the town is full of little fences that appear as if they should hold animals. Inside the fences are pits of flopping gray mud bubbles rising up from (what I assume to be) underground vents. Each hot spot has its own featured exhibit, making the town appear as if it is a giant zoo with a million special animals. Tourists and kiwis alike treat these exhibits with an enormous amount of respect. We all peer into the steaming pits with awe, stare at it as if it were a piece of ancient art, comment appropriately, and then excitedly drift on to the next exhibit.

That being said, everyone dutifully ignores the weirdest thing about Rotorua: the smell. The scent of sewage drifts in and out of every open window, down every street. No one plugs their nose when they eat, though that may be the wise thing to do. No one needs to put on deodorant, or take showers. Everyone could, theoretically, pass their own gas all the time— not a single person would notice. The even weirder thing is that you only notice it for that moment and then the senses acclimate. But I guess that comes with the territory and one must give in order to get.

Lake Rotorua from the Government Garden's thermal vents pathway.

Steaming geyser in front of Rotorua, the town, and Rotorua, the lake.