Geyser Notes

The day started with a little side trip to the mudpots at Te Kopia. Just a small turnout along a side road (which eventually is not paved) featuring some large mudpots.

We arrived at Orakeikorako at opening. Took the ferry across to the thermal area with little knowledge of what to expect. What we found was a series of terraces connected by boardwalks. The formations have been heavily altered, especially for the walkways, with deep gutters keeping the water from flooding them. There's also a loop, beyond the terraces, to the "thermal cave" and to some mudpots. These are worth a visit, but I doubt I'd go there again unless I had plenty of time there.

The first geyser we saw was Cascade. This feature erupts from a cavern in the Rainbow Fault, the wall the ends the first terrace. There's new, pink sinter being deposed by a geyser, that on the day we were there, erupted out of the crater to a couple of meters high every 6 minutes or so, lasting about 30 seconds. We saw lots of eruptions, because we spent a fair amount of time trying to see nearby Sapphire Geyser.

This appears to be a small gray vent on the flat at the base of the wall of the fault. Right after our first Cascade eruption, we saw steam come out of the area, and got in position to see the end of the water splashing. Reports we had said "hours" between eruptions, so we were a bit disappointed. We watched a few more Cascade eruptions, then move on up to the next terrace.

There wasn't much going on there. At the far end is the Golden Fleece fault, which was damp from water flowing over the edge, and on the extreme southern end, what appeared to be a runoff waterfall that suddenly picked up while we were looking at the area. Up there we found the Artists Palette. There's a great overlook at the eastern end, when most of the features can be seen, except for those directly below the overlook and hidden by the plant life.

During an hour or so there, we saw several erupting features. Based on Lloyd's map of the area from 1960, we saw activity in #742, #761, #764, and #760. There was also a perpetual spouter at the base of the Pyramid of Geysers throwing water from a pool to a height of about 3 meters. We also saw increased variations in activity from Psyche's Bath (#704) and #782. #764 erupted once, early in our visit. It's a large pool whose splashes reached two or thee meters, and it lasted about 3m30s minutes.

There were a lot of large, empty holes out there, Palette Pool and #742 being the most notable. We don't know if that is normal, or a variation in the activity. #742 erupted to about a meter high farily often from the empty crater, throwing water from one side across the crater.

Turns out that it was probably #764 that was putting out the water cascading over the fault scarp. It appears to be an intermittent spring that would frequently rise up a few centimeters and send out pulses of water. On the whole though, the Artist's Palette was a bit of a disappointment, as it didn't change much.

We decided to complete the loop, and then see if we could catch another Sapphire eruption. When we got back to the second terrace, we noticed some holes between the walkway and the rock wall behind it. This location is west of Wairiri Geyser. It was obvious that these three holes had broken out under the walkway, as the gutter cut into the sinter was clearly visible. They are large, each several meters across, and the one on the left had two vent craters. There was also a sheet of plywood nailed the the railing facing the holes.

Right after we arrived, suddenly the middle hole welled up and splashed for several second to about a meter. At the same time, the back right vent showed water. Afther this activity, the water dropped. There was some bubbling in the main vent, but no other changes. It didn't appear that any water had been discharged recently, as there were no damp catch pools.

We continued on, and saw the Soda Fountain. It appears to be perpetual, or at least has a long duration. It has a broad, several meter in diameter pool with considerable discharge.

Back at Sapphire and Cascade, we noticed that Sapphire would have a brief splash every 5 or 6 minutes. These splashes were coming closer together, so that after about 45 minutes, they were about two minutes apart. We then caught a real eruption. It build up from the splashes into spray of water to about three meters, and lasted about a minute.

After that, it was back to Artist's Palette, where there really wasn't much change. We decided that we wanted to try again for Sapphire, and so came back about an hour later and within ten minutes got another eruption. Again, the splashes were closely spaced.

It was time for some guru geyser gazing. The interval between the first and the second eruptions we observed was almost exactly three times the length of this interval. So we knew we wanted to be back in about an hour.

We'd heard report from some gazers who'd been to Orakekorako the week before of new activity, "at the end of Golden Fleece Terrace and next to the trees". We were able to determine that this indeed was the features that caused the walkway to be relocated. So it was back to Sapphire, where we got an eruption with about a 65 minute interval. For guru geyser gazing, not too bad.

We wanted to catch one last Sapphire before leaving (there's no facilities in the thermal area, and they said there's no return once you leave.) And still curious about the new features. This time we were rewarded. This time, without much warning, the left vents started splashing several meters high for nearly three minutes. There was no discharge. Then, about a minute after that, the middle vent filled and blipped water. It did this several times over the next five minutes, with the longest and biggest being the last one. But none of these matched what we had seen earlier in the day. It does appear that this feature had been undermining the walkway for quite a while, sort of like what Bulger's Hole had been doing.

Our final Sapphire interval was 60 minutes. On the whole, our guru geyser gazing worked out. The decreasing interval lengths might mean something, but we'll never know.And with that, it was time to leave.

Did visit one other thermal area. Next to the Tokaanu Spa is a thermal area with a free walkway. Along it were some soupy mudpots and hot pools, all surrounded by thick plant life. At the end of the walk loop was a fence with a sign saying "Private property" Beyond it is what is supposed to be a geyser. This feature has been heavily modified, with a deep trench cut into the formations to lead away the water. Reports I had were that it was erupting every few minutes for about 30 second. While the formations were wet with puddles, we saw nothing happen, not even steam, during the ten minutes or so that we were there. (Would have stayed longer, but needed to get to that night's lodging.)