Sabbatical VII - Mt. Tarawera and Whakaari (White Island)

I liked Rotorua.  It has tourist encrustation like Taupo, but it felt quainter and more genuine.  It also felt like a working town; at one point when I was lost, I wandered into the light industrial area - metal fabrication.  It also has a larger Maori population, dating from original settlements hundreds of years ago.  Makes sense as a home: lots of geothermal for cooking, heating, and likely plenty of resources in the land and water.  Rotorua mud has long been a beauty treatment as well, at least where the mud is sulphur-poor, or else it would be a skin removal treatment.  My guidebook mentioned that some people don’t like the way the town smells: depending on the winds, the intermittent odor of H2S, hydrogen sulphide, i.e., rotten eggs.  Not a problem, it means active hot springs, geysers, boiling mud pots, and other fun stuff.

My first Rotorua campground had its own geothermal pools.  At my second, there was a boiling stream running behind my campsite.  How neat is this?  Signage said not to go barefoot, the ground was too hot in places.  There was also a free (geothermal) steam oven for use.  It cooked my veggies just fine.

Rotorua, Taupo, the Tongariro cluster and other volcanoes I’ll mention below are all part of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, which is a linear zone of volcanic activity caused by rising magma generated from the Pacific Plate as it subducts under the Australian Plate.  It’s analogous to the Cascades in North America, but much more enthusiastic.  Almost all the major volcanoes have erupted in the past decade to century.  There’s a buried Maori town, dating from the late 19^th century.  Taupo, Rotorua, and many of the other lakes in the Zone are calderas, as I’ve written before.  These large craters are symptomatic of infrequent very large eruptions.  Like I said, enthusiastic.  I’m not sure how Mt. Taranaki and its siblings, which form a linear zone of their own, relate to the Taupo Zone.  They seem a little distant and off trend to be part of the same magma plumbing system.  Here's a bad picture of what I mean from a sign in Rotorua:

I was spoiled for choice for interesting geologic and cultural opportunities in the Rotorua area.  Top of my list was having a look at Whakaari, aka, White Island, which is an active marine volcano about 30 miles off the coast.  There were boat and airborne options to get there.  I couldn’t decide, so I went to sleep and figured I’d go to the I-Site in the morning and sort it out.

Sunday May 26 – Foggy at dawn, quickly burned off.  Clear skies. I went downtown the I-Site.  I thought that a floatplane might hit the sweet spot of time, location, and cost.  Well, all that was on offer was a 3 hour helicopter trip to White Island.  LANDING AND WALKING AROUND IN AN ACTIVE VOLCANO.  With a free bonus landing on the summit of Mt. Tarawera, a 1300m volcano in the Taupo Zone.  I applied the Weta test; when will I be back here again?  I burned a hole in my credit card, and then drove MG over to the lakefront office of Volcanic Air.  Rotorua Lake was beautiful under the blue sky.  I was given the right day to fly:

I was beyond excited.  I like flying in helicopters, both the uncanny ways they can move (or hover) as well as the slow speeds they can travel.  I set my DSLR on automatic rapid shot mode.  I met my fellow passengers, Andrew from Nelson (South Island) and Heidi from Germany.  They were my age and demographic.  We had a safety briefing: life jackets, gas masks, hard hats.  A float plane took off for a short flight around the lake.  A whump-whump-whump noise indicated the arrival of our ride.  A five-seater Eurocopter came in and landed on the dock:

The pilot’s name was Matt.  Probably in his 30s, I have a feeling he was ex-military.  Very nice guy in the Kiwi way.  Smart, funny, knowledgeable personable: all good qualities for an aerial tour guide.  He gave us ground rules: don’t open the doors, let him inspect our safety harnesses, if we go in the water let him inflate the life raft, and don’t inflate your life vest for fun in the cabin. 

We strapped in and took off, first stop Mt. Tarawera.  We travelled over the east shore of the Lake Rotorua, and then over the combination of working lands – livestock fields, tree farms – and native brush that typify rural New Zealand.  Andrew was particularly excited about the working forests; that is his business. 

Working forests indeed, note clear cuts, new forest in lower left.  Orange = reflection of my jacket.

We flew at about 2000 feet, and then climbed to land on Mt. Tarawera.  Amazing.  I AM GETTING OUT OF A HELICOPTER ON THE TOP OF A VOLCANO.  I FLEW HERE IN A HELICOPTER.  The summit was complex, hollowed out by a set of three major craters.  We touched down on the high point between two of them and hiked around.  Matt gave a good overview of the geology (I admitted to being a geologist by training at this point) as well as the recent eruptions, which destroyed one of the premier tourist sites near Rotorua, back in the 1880s.  He practically forced us to let him take our pictures. Here are a few views:

 

 

 It was chilly, although not as cold as Tongariro; I was at lower elevation on Mt. Tarawera, and the sun sure helped.  Back in the Eurocopter.  I got the front seat for the trip out to White Island. 

We were essentially flying up the Taupo Volcanic Zone; lots more geothermal steam plumes in the land below us, along with sheep, cattle, and trees in rows.  Sigh.  Matt also pointed out the many acre-scale rectilinear areas covered in white netting: kiwi orchards:

They are both delicate and valuable.  This coastal region, The Bay of Plenty, is where most of the world’s kiwis are grown.  Matt and Andrew were both very pleased that I liked and could describe both varieties of kiwi (green and gold). 

We crossed the coast, passing by a few remnant volcanic islands.  Maori preserves.  White Island was dead ahead, distinctive by the constant plume of eruption gasses rising from its crater: 

This tour was so well done.  We circled the volcano clockwise and anticlockwise for maximum photographic exposure.  The light was great – late morning, clear skies.  Volcanic Air has built a series of wooden touchdown pads, to guarantee safe landing.  Wood is durable in the acidic volcanic air; most metals break down really fast.  We touched down.  Matt shut the helo down, including using a hand brake to stop the rotor.  Cute.

We got out.  I WAS STANDING IN AN ACTIVE VOLCANO.  Matt issued hard hats and gas masks, and then led us on an hour plus tour of volcanic wonderland.  The ongoing eruption is non-explosive (or there would be no tour).  White Island is “only” venting gasses, including water vapor, H2S, and SO2.  We had the gas masks for the SO2, which really stings the eyes, nasal passages, and throat.  There was probably a bit of ozone, HF and HCl as well, but I did not want to borrow trouble about that.  Anyway SO2 was not a problem, as the gas plumes were constantly swirled away by wind or we could just move to breathable air.  We worked our way up towards the crater, ascending a slope of andesitic volcanic ash.  No life apparent; I’d be shocked if there aren’t extremophile bacteria thriving somewhere in the crater.  We hopped over a boiling stream; condensed volcanic water; not meteoric water from rainfall.  I thought; it’s from volcanoes that Earth’s secondary atmosphere was born -I’m seeing it in action here.  Giddiness.  We reached the crater, which was filled by a lake of sulphur-rich water (pH 0.5 –I didn’t know that was possible).  It looked genuinely hellish, in a lovely vulcanian kind of way: 

The SO2 was strong.  Once we’d all coughed enough Matt led us back toward the water and the helo, stopping at a series of bright yellow sulphur vents: elemental sulphur crystallizing directly from the gasses: 

Our final stop were the abandoned sulphur works.  Yes, someone thought it would be a good business to collect the minerals for fertilizer.  It wasn’t.  The remains of the little processing plant were post-apocalyptic:

All too soon, 75 minutes had gone by.  Here is a video of liftoff and circling the crater.

Sigh.  It’s hard to express what this trip meant to me.  I’ve looked into a bunch of active volcanoes from the safety of a distant overlook.  Being there with all the action was BETTER.  I’ve been waving my arms and teaching volcanoes in my classes for decades; now I’ve seen what I was telling stories about.  Finally, if you know me well, you know I’m a continual student of early Earth history; seeing this barren, hot, acidic place gave me a sense of what the surface was like before life got rolling and changed everything.

Back to Rotorua.  Genuine appreciation for a thoroughly professional and safe tour.  Goodbyes.  I weaved my way back to MG.  I was overstimulated and hungry.   Couldn’t fix the former other than gibbering to myself, but a late lunch was good.  I was so thankful for this opportunity – being in the right place with capacity at the right time – the clearest day of the past week!

Is it possible to have an encore?  No.  I spent the rest of the afternoon at Wai-O-Tapu, rated as the best geothermal preserve in the Rotorua area.  Maybe it is, but after the morning it seemed – mundane.  No gas mask.  I think its vents and springs were also in a quiescent phase, so not particularly colorful.  You can decide for yourselves:

Enough for one day?  I think so.  Back to my geothermal campground and another long soak.  Happy exhaustion.