Wai-O-Tapu
Geothermal pools in orange, green and sulphur yellow, and a steaming champagne pool.
Duration
2 hrs – 3 hrs
Best time
At opening
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
Wai-O-Tapu, 'sacred waters' in Māori, is a geothermal field where the colours come from dissolved minerals: orange is antimony, green colloidal sulphur, yellow pure sulphur, white silica.
The Champagne Pool is sixty-five metres across and sixty-two deep, at seventy-four degrees, and its bright orange rim is an arsenic and antimony deposit. The Lady Knox geyser erupts every morning at a quarter past ten — not naturally, but because soap is poured in, which breaks the surface tension. The site says so, but many people miss it.
Getting there
Twenty-seven kilometres south of Rotorua, half an hour by road. The Lady Knox geyser is a few kilometres from the main entrance.
What the price covers
paid park entry, rate to be confirmed on site
What to bring
- Swimsuit
- Board
Rules on site
Stay on the boardwalks without exception: the ground around them is a thin crust over eighty-degree water, and people have died. The sulphur smell stays in your clothes for the day.