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 well over 1/2 meter, and putting out a correspondingly large amount of water.
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 seemed to start much more quickly that our earlier observations, and to last about ten minutes longer. Eventually I'll post some video of the Pohutu eruptions.