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| Maori woman preparing food in a hot spring, Whakarewarewa, 1910 |
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Walking around the thermal field even today, the earth crunches underfoot as you wander past boiling and fizzing lakes. Steam, pouring from holes in the ground, shrouds valleys. You feel as though you could be in scenes from the beginning of time, in this strange world of multi-coloured lichens and algae, and rivers of brown, yellow and red. Water boils from between rocks and the renowned Pohutu Geyser propels hissing water some 30 metres into the air.
In the centre of this seething and bubbling tumult lies the village of Whakarewarewa. Instead of people facing daily terror, you meet people preparing to take a bath!
Someone is placing their evening meal into a cooking box over a thermal vent before they return to work. Somebody else is repairing a pipe which channels hot water from the ground into radiators to heat their home.
[ more about Rotorua's hidden energy ]
These are things that have changed little in hundreds of years. Even today’s income from tourists helps to support traditional crafts, such as the weaving of skirts and bags from flax bleached in the boiling mineral pools.
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