GFE Stumpes: Orākei Kōrako, Wairakei Terraces, and Huka Falls, NZ (9/18/2025)

Thursday, September 18, 2025

We checked out of the hotel in Rotorua and drove one hour to Orākei Kōrako Geothermal Attraction.

Note the gender designations at the toilets (KSS)

We first had breakfast at the Mudcake Café, where again
the hot chocolate had cocoa powder on the surface,
as if they purposely did not mix it all in

The meat pie came with a packet of tomato sauce,
the New Zealand version of ketchup

View across the Waikato River at Orākei Kōrako

We took the on-demand ferry across the river at about 8:30

Various colored deposits and streams heading to the river (KSS)

We were not fortunate to have a sunny day that would brighten
the colors of the geothermal runoff on the Emerald Terrace (KSS)

Rainbow Terrace in foreground and Cascade Terrace beyond it

We are climbing higher and looking down on Cascade Terrace

A mud pot

There are at least 600 steps on this walk;
here we some some color (KSS)

Sphaeropteris medullaris/Mamaku/Black Fern Tree (KSS)

Golden Fleece Terrace; we were on a boardwalk (KSS)

The water was boiling (KSS)

Elephant Rock?

Artist's Palette

Climbing higher to look down on Artist's Palette

More steps (KSS)

We had to climb up near the top, then go down
36 m/118' into volcanic tuff to the Ruayapu Cave
with Waiwhakaata/Pool of Mirrors hot pool (KSS)

A cooler area next to the Artist's Palette with ducks

Up above the mud pools (KSS)

Mud pool bubbling:

Mud pool closeup (KSS)

Orange lichen?

Sulphur-colored stream (KSS)

Soda Fountain

Over two hours later we made it back to the ferry, and I felt like I could not manage another step up!

We had a 30-minute drive to
Wairakei Terraces & Thermal Health Spa

We first had lunch of a ham and cheese toastie...

... and two poached eggs and toast, chutney and
spinach salad, with Kent's long black coffee

Wairakei Terraces is known for its silica terraces,
and four pools at four different temperatures
comfortable enough for people to take
advantage of their healing properties

This silica pool is too hot...

..although we think this sign has a typo

Silica terraces

Silica terraces on the lower side (KSS)

This might be artificial terracing to support
a man-made geyser at the top

The man-made geyser is fed by superheated fluids
that come from depths of over 1.5 km/1 mile and
pressures of 250 thousand pounds per square inch

Ngātoroirangi was the Great Navigator who
brought his people, the Te Awara, from
Hawaiki, the ancestral homeland, to
Aotearoa/New Zealand and they travelled
inland to settle in the Lake Taupō region

There are at least seven distinct Māori groups based on the legendary seven canoes of the Great Fleet that brought the island-hopping Polynesians to New Zealand. These peoples once could trace their origins to one of seven ancestors. The supposed mass migration according to oral history may have occurred c 1350 CE.