geysers.org

[2026 Mar 22: Updated with photo of new feature location]

Went back to Te Puia today, and the day started out looking pretty good. In the waiting room at the entrance they have a large video screen with a view of the geysers on display as you wait for your start time. While we waited, I noticed nothing that would indicate that Kereru was having minor eruptions. When we finally got out to the geyser area, we quickly confirmed that the geyser appeared to be in the pause mode before a major eruption.

The day was cool, a bit damp, but bright and sunny. The entire day, except for on ten minute period, what little wind there was blowing the steam away from us. But for about ten minutes, the wind shifted and we started to feel some of the spray from an eruption of Pohutu. That's when Kereru suddenly started to look in it was going to erupt.

The eruption was a mass of steam hidden behind the mass of steam generated by the runoff from Pohutu. There was a tour in process, so the bridge viewpoint was noisy, so not only were we unable to see the eruption, we pretty much couldn't see it, either.

That was at 09:44. Until we had to leave at the closing time of 17:30, Kereru had minor eruptions averaging about 2-1/2 minutes apart. Occasionally the interval would lengthen to about five minutes, and we would wonder if we'd just missed an eruption. There were other times that the minor eruption was so strong that we could see the water starting to flow off the terrace, as it does in the major eruption, only for the duration to be normal. So today we learned that the period of minor activity can last up to eight hours, and confirmed that it still appears that major eruptions can't be part of a minor series.

Once Kereru had the major eruption, we knew that it would be a few hours before the next opportunity, as the shortest major series has been about an hour, and the shortest pause around 45 minutes. So I took the time to walk and video the trail running from Geyser Flat to Papakura Geyser. (Pretty much the trail we took last night.) Also took the side trails to Waikite Geyser and Puapua Geyser, both of which are dormant.

At least Pohutu continued to exhibit the expected behavior it showed last night, erupting with intervals of around an hour to 1-1/2 hours. Waikorohihi and Mahanga were also fairly active. I saw several eruptions of Waikorohihi that lasted well over half an hour, and several series of Mahanga eruptions where it would erupt every minite for a few seconds.

It seemed like a fitting ending to our New Zealand geyser visits, where the activity was pretty good, but there always seemed to be a bit of a disappointment (no Waiotapu or Taumatapuhipuhi or Cascade Geyser activity, or just missing Inferno Crater overflow, for example.)

Update: During their visit back in December, Henning and Beatrice Rieske saw a new feature erupting across the bridge from Pohutu. We never saw any activity from this area, and the staining on the plant life was less than I'd have expected if it was still active.

After five busy days, it was time to take it easier. This morning was overcast and foggy, and there was a distinct thermal smell in the air at our Rotorua accomodations.

In the afternoon, we spent a couple of hours in Kuirau Park. There have been a few changes there since the last visit. More of the area around Kuirau Lake has been inundated, for example.

Over by Tarawa Road there have were some significant differences. Many of the trails have been closed because of heavy overflow from a set of springs along the western edge. One of these was boiling heavily and continuously to splashing up to 1/2 meter, and putting out a correspondingly large amount of water. (Update: It appears from the 1998 map that this is Spring #648)

In the evening we went to see the Te Puia nighttime experience. Lots of colored lights and lasers, and two eruptions of Pohutu. And Kereru minors the whole time, and activity from Mahanga and Waikorohihi. The latter two were hard to observe due to the lighting, the darkness, the wind direction (or lack of wind) and the frequency of Mahanga eruptions.

Twice while standing on the bridge watching Pohutu, I heard a noise behind me, only to see an Australian possum scurry across the bridge to the other side.

Earlier in the day Te Tohu had some sort of wild phase, and Pohutu only had a couple of minor eruptions, so it was nice to see it had recovered. These eruptions seemed to start much more quickly than our earlier observations, and to last about ten minutes longer. Eventually I'll post some video of the Pohutu light show eruptions.

Today was the day we took to the waters of Rotomahana by kayak to see geysers. Turned out to be an excellent day. It was cloudy at first, but quickly cleared into a cool, mostly sunny day.

We met our guide at a little after 0900 at the Waimangu visitor center and cafe. Turns out she was the same guide we had had three years ago, and was late because sheep were being moved between paddocks. (We are in New Zealand, remember?) This time we were joined by Graham Meech.

Took the bus down to the water and were on the lake by 0930. The features are all along the lakeshore, both above and below the water. There were perhaps a couple of dozen little spouters right on the water's edge. Which is surprising, as the lake level varies, and the activity depends on that level.

Recording activity while operating a kayak can be difficult, so I tried something different this time. I bought a mount for my GoPro camera that consists of a neck collar with a camera attachment, and wore this. It makes it easy to turn on/off, and just let it record while paddling. It can also be held and pointed manually when needed. The only problems were that it sometimes would get tilted, or blocked by my paddling. But with the timestamp, it made it possible to save all the times of eruptions we saw, and to review what was seen on an overwhelming day.

There are several bays separating the thermal activity, so it's not all visible at once. [I will probably update this posting in a week or so after we return home with proper or corrected names. I don't have the reference materials and maps here.]

In the first bay, we saw a number of fumaroles and steam vents well above the lake level, but the only water was from a small vent about 1/2 meter above the lake that was pouring out water.

The next bay is where the Angel Wings is located. [I need to verify names here.] Most noticeable is a perpetual spouter erupting up to a couple of meters high inside an alcove, The alcove is surrounded by golden yellow thermophilic slime. Along the lake were a couple of small spouters flowing directly into the lake.

Also here is a set of unique formations. I've referred to this as "Angel Wings", but it appears that I was wrong. Our guide didn't known of a name, but said she called it "Oyster", and that's good enough for me to use as a name. It consists of a couple of sheets of sinter and does look like an oyster or clamshell. (There's also a "Clamshell Spring" located along the creek leading from the Frying Pan Flats.) Every couple of minutes it would erupt a meter or two high for a few seconds. The force of the eruptions varied, from weak to once threatening Graham when get got a little too close.

At the point separating the next bay were some features just at or below the surface of the lake. A couple of areas of strong upwelling and splashing on the lake surface, and to the left a small spouter on a slightly raised platform noisily sputtering away. Farther into the bay were more fumaroles just above the surface of the lake.

The next bay didn't have any thermal activity, so we didn't enter into it.

In the next bay was the primary attraction for the day— Pink Terrace/Otukapuarangi Geyser. One of the goals of this trip was to maximize the amount of time to observe this geyser, and were successful. After seeing few eruptions we went on to the point separating the bay from the next one. This was the last area of thermal activity.

After seeing at least seven eruptions of Pink Terrace/Otukapuarangi from the kayaks, our guide suggested we put ashore for lunch. This was a surprise, and we did not expect to be going ashore. As it turns out, it's common on this tour to have lunch on the beach of the bay we skipped, but I guess we were so enthusiastic about the geyser that she was willing to do us a favor. So sat down on some on some rocks at the edge of the lake, rocks that were warmer than just being out in the sun. (Graham said he had a small steaming crack a couple of feet from where he was sitting). We ate our sandwiches and pastries while the geyser erupted three times. The only disadvantage was that it was not possible to see the splashing at the start.

The intervals were about 8 to 9 minutes apart, and the durations varied a bit. At first they were about 100 seconds, while later they were over two minutes long. I would estimate the height of most of the eruptions to be about 10 meters, but some of my videos show some nice spikes going well above the general mass of the eruption. It was comparable to Kereru in height.

After the lunch we watch one more eruption from the kayaks, then headed back the way we came. We stopped in for a couple of eruptions of Oyster, then returned to the starting point.

Due to storms and wet weather of the past few years, a number of the trails have been re-routed or closed. A portion of the walkway following the creek is closed, a stretch with a number of small fumaroles and spouters. The Mt.Haszard side trail is closed, but when we walked that in 2019, we figured there was no need to do it again as there is a lot of climbing up and down and nothing but overgrown former viewpoints.

There was also a collapse of a cut in the trail near Iodine Spring requiring the rerouting of the trail up and around. This had the effect of making it much easier to see into Iodine, an actual improvement despite the steepness of the bypass.

On the morning bus ride out, the driver mentioned to the guide that Inferno Crater was overflowing. This was great news, as Inferno Crater has a cycle lasting around 38 days where it will come up to overflow for maybe a day. One of the reasons we weren't reluctant to leave the lake was because of this. As it turned out, the overflow probably stopped around the time we were having lunch. There was just slight overflow at the base of the runoff when we got there.

Another change from our previous visit is the change in the availability of toilet facilities. Previously the only indoor plumbing in the valley as at a building at the Warbrick Terrace. That building is now gone, so much so that I couldn't see where it had been. Instead there are more modern flush-type toilet as the three bus stops.

Today it was time to visit the other half of the Wakarewarewa thermal area, the Maori village.

In order to get to see Parekohoru and Korotiotio up close, one must take the 1-1/2 hour long Village Guided Tour. Unlike the Te Puia tour, at least you are in and around thermal areas for much of that time, and it's a much better introduction to the Maori culture than just wood carving. Also you get to sample a portion of an ear of corn that's been boiled in Parekohuro.

At the conclusion of the tour you end up at on overlook onto the Geyser Flat and Bluey Pool over in Te Puia. We also bought the Geothermal Walk, so could stay all day and leave and return to the overlook. Pohotu ended within moments of our arrival.

Graham Meech was over at the bridge across Puarenga Stream on the Te Puia side, and had witnessed the last Kereru minor eruption just after his arrival, well over an hour earlier. So we knew we were about to wait for however long it took to see the expected major eruption of Kereru.

Over the next hour we saw another eruption of Pohutu start, as well as activity from Waikorohihi and Mahanga. Because of our locations, we had the better view of the latter two geysers. They can be difficult to tell apart from the bridge overlook because of their close proximity and the viewing angle and the wind direction.

Kereru's vent isn't directly visible, hidden just out of sight by the mass of sinter forming the Geyser Flat platform. But it is possible to get an idea of the intensity of the activity.

Just over an hour later we notice an increase in the steaminess coming from Kereru. At the same time, a non-English speaking tour (probably Japanese) appeared on the platform. I don't know why, but these tours seem to have to make lots of noise as they spend their time taking selfies and staring at the little view screens instead of the scene in front of them. Of course, that's when Kereru erupted, especially since the wind direction shifted so that it was headed directly toward us. (And it didn't help that my camera glitched so that I missed the lead-up to the start of the eruption.)

After than, we figured we were free for a while, and it was time to do the Geothermal Walk. We took our time, and about 3/4 hour later we were only part-way along when we got a message from Graham telling us that the minor activity from Kereru had stopped and all was quiet there. So we returned to the platform.

We didn't need to hurry back, and saw a couple of Pohutu eruptions during our wait. The second eruption seemed to take longer to start, with Te Tohu erupting for nearly twenty minutes prior, when otherwise the interval was closer to twelve minutes. This eruption of Pohutu was also different in that there wasn't much of the preliminary splashing, but instead it started climbing almost immediately, while Te Tohu got bigger and noisier.

It was the strongest and tallest eruption of Pohutu we've seen this trip. I would estimate the height in the 25-30 meter range, definitely taller than a Daisy eruption. It could easily be heard from the overlook, and it maintained the height for several minutes before subsiding.

Right after this eruption, which had a typical duration of about 24 minutes, had ended, the steam from Kereru picked up. This time the platform was empty except for a quieter couple that I think were Italians. The wind direction cooperated, and I was able to record the full eruption showing the height.

Following that, with a bit over an hour left before closing time, we again went on the Geothermal Walk portion of our visit. This is an area of trails and boardwalks outside the limits of the village proper that winds through an area with large pools both clear and boiling and gray and sludgy. There are some perpetual spouters, but no true geysers in the area.

(Over at Te Puia, Graham had to stay because well over an hour before closing over there, once again he saw the Kereru minor series end. Unfortunately, he had to leave before the major eruption.)

One of the noticeable things on the first visit was the color of the Bluey Pool and its low water level. This was even more obvious from the overlook. This feature is not a hot spring, but more of a large catch basin used for swimming. Several of the guides on the tours mentioned that the prevailing winds have been from the wrong direction, preventing the water from the Pohutu eruptions from filling the pool. I notice also that there were signs up prohibiting the use of the pool, including a Rāhui, which is a formal Maori closure used for resource protection (and after accidental deaths).