Terekereke Was the first wonder we came to. It is a large pool of dark blue water enclosed by black rocks, and encrusted with sinter. The ceaseless bubbling of the water above and below the surface gives it the more ordinary name of the "champagne" pool. Occasionally the action increases, and masses of boiling water are thrown against the rocks, accompanied by clouds of sulphuric steam, and then it quiets down again to its usual effervescent surface.
Tuhuatahi Geyser, New Zealand.
Tuhuatahi, the most active geyser in the valley, we arrived at next. Looking over into a fissure of the rock, we saw a small quantity of boiling water; and, even as we looked, we heard a distinct underground crashing. It was the first warning. We retreated to a corner which we knew to be safe, from the greenness of the vegetation. Another warning louder than before followed after a minute's interval, and was still more quickly succeeded by a third one.
It was the signal for the waters to begin heaving and surging, boiling over the edge of the basin, and running down the terrace on which we stood. It threw up a small column, and then one higher and still higher, emitting dense clouds of steam, in the midst of which we caught glimpses of a silvery column, playing to a height of ten feet above us. Detached drops were thrown up still higher, shining out from against the black wall of rock which forms a most striking background. We watched this boiling column anxiously, feeling that at any moment a gust of wind might scatter its contents over us; and then we looked wistfully at the reducing force of the convulsion, and the grumbling subsidence of the element within the crater, till the gentle lapping of the water against the sides told us there was peace within once more. Again and again we waited to see the great Tuhuatahi come forth from his cavernous depths, with always those same three warnings, those three underground grumblings and mutterings. They come quite regularly at intervals of seven minutes, and the action of the geyser itself lasts about three minutes. All around them were little embryo terraces, incrustated with pale pink, saffron and green, fringed with silica crystals; and the spongy rocks scattered about were coloured to a dark red, brown, or a brilliant orange, from the strong sulphur impregnating all that comes within its reach.
We crossed the boiling stream Te Wairakei (the same which runs by the wharrie), at the bottom of this volcanic valley. As we ascended we heard the continuous thud of the "Donkey Engine," which has a pulsating throb reverberating like the thud of a steam-engine working "in" the hill underneath us. The origin of the "Donkey Engine" has not yet been discovered.
From the other side of the valley we looked down into the mouth of the "Great Wairakei." It has a curious triangular crater of spongy masses of light brown sinter projecting out from the rock. The apex of the triangle is formed by a large incrusted rock, something in the shape of an arm-chair. Great Wairakei was not very active to-day, and we waited long before he gave any signs of life.
Then we wandered on to Little Wairakei, a blue lake concealed in a quiet corner behind manuka bushes; but this pale blue water is of a dangerous nature, being 210° Fahrenheit. Below were the mud volcanoes—several patches of creamy-looking mud. At every instant they bubbled up in little cones, bobbing up and down in the most comical fashion. Then there was the pool called the Coffee Pot, which literally boiled over every few minutes.
After this we had a terribly rough scramble of half an hour, through tall ti-trees, clinging to the branches down steep banks where the earth was quite hot. We had to pick our way across a boiling pool on loose stones, and climb over sinter rocks, whose crinkled edges cut mercilessly at hands and feet unless care was used, and then we found ourselves standing on a ledge literally surrounded by active geysers. Not one minute passed, after we had walked over the three blow-holes in the rock called "the Prince of Wales' Feathers," than they were playing away brightly in a tripled feathery spray. I sat down on a projecting stone, and feeling myself being scorched underneath, discovered I was sitting over a steam hole! As I got up Nga Ma-hanga, or The Twins, began to play vigorously. They have a large pear-shaped basin of sinter, divided into two portions, and resemble a huge Turkey sponge in their creamy perforated substance. They are surrounded by masses of white and orange silica, and explode in violent outbursts at intervals of four or five minutes. No sooner had they finished, than "The Whistler" began to be active and throw up from a black cavernous mouth, accompanied by a small water-spout, which acts simultaneously with "the Whistler," at intervals of ten minutes. We watched to see "the Boilers" perform. These from a rock-bound pool covered with green shiny algæ, partially separated by a narrow chasm, send up spasmodically a column of water from six to eight feet in height.
And then we began to feel that if we waited there any longer, with these geysers playing alternately around us, the ground might open beneath our feet, and ourselves be engulphed in a fiery furnace and pit of hell, so we scrambled away.