Today was the day to visit Waiotapu. As usual, we arrived as early as possible. The objective was to quickly assess the situation at the Waiotapu Geyser (#70) and then based on those observations, either wait or go watch the Lady Knox spectacle.
The first thing noticed was that the water level in Rotokarikitea/Devil's Cave appeared to be down at least a meter, based on the yellowish bathtub ring above the current water line. When the sun came out, the water was the brilliant greenish, almost phosphorescent color we'd seen during previous visits.
When we got to the geyser, it was pretty obvious that it had not erupted recently. The formations surrounding the vent were completely dry, despite it being a cold, humid morning. The vent was mostly in shadow, but there was no indication of any water visible in the vent. Twenty minutes later, everything appeared to be the same, so we decided to join the crowd headed to see the induced eruption.
There was a long line of cars headed that way, and we learned that it was possible to pay for admission at the gate there. I don't remember that being the case when we went there in 2019. In any case, that would not have altered our plans. We found some open seating down at the front, in what at the time appeared to be a location that wasn't down-wind.
The stadium was packed, more so than our previous visit, which was still pretty full. Previously, there had been a small talk about the history, the soap was introduced and once the geyser started to overfoam the guide let it be the center of attention. The eruption we saw lasted well over a half hour, and was still erupting as we left.
This time there was entertainment. The guide sang a Maori song as the overfoaming started, so when the eruption started, we couldn't hear it, despite some roaring as it reached maximum height. Then the eruption died down completely, ending at just over a minute in duration. There was no attempt at any afterplay splashing that I could see. On the whole, a disappointing experience. Years ago we managed to induce better eruptions from #42w.
We returned to the main thermal area a pretty much the end of the line of vehicles, but we did get a decent parking spot. Returned to the geyser overlook, and learned that we hadn't missed anything. The area around the vent was still dry, and even with the better sun angle, there didn't appear to be any water visible in the vent.
Also while we were gone, it got windy at the overlook location, which made observing distinctly uncomfortable. Suzanne left me to do that. Just a short distance away there were some picnic table in the sunlight where the breeze was tolerable, so I waited there for ten to fifteen minutes, then returned to the overlook to be disappointed by no change in the geyser.
Finally gave up a couple of hours later. Figured that there wasn't going to be enough time for the geyser to show signs of life before closing time. Did do some videos of Champagne Pool and the features around it. There was one vent that was splashing slightly, which was the sum total of the natural eruption activity I saw today.
Since it was just down the road, we stopped in at the mudpots again. The activity there was much more entertaining. There were a couple of areas that every so often would explode with mud thrown in all directions, reaching heights of about four meters.
Finally, on the drive back, we stopped at the trail to the Crater Lake overlook. This is a warm thermal pool at the base of Rainbow Mountain. It used to be two craters, but the one to the north was more of a mud flat. The color of the water is that milky, opalescent blue that would otherwise indicate that it was much hotter.
At this point I'm thinking that should there be a future visit to New Zealand, there will be no need to visit Waiotapu.
