Tauranga Day #4

12/30/07

Today we drove a rental car to Whakatane, which is about 1.5 hours away from Tauranga, to take a cruise to White Island, which is an active volcano! The last time it erupted was July 2000, so it’s still pretty active. It doesn’t actually spew lava, but it spits out huge rocks that are still somewhat liquid when they come out. Before it erupted in 2000, the whole island was very smooth. Now it’s covered with ash and rock. Some of the rocks that came out actually landed in the bay, which was really far. The island was used to mine sulfur in the early 1900’s, but they didn’t extract enough sulfur from the rock to make it profitable, so they shut it down.

The tour guide walked us around the island and showed us various places that were steaming and “hot spots”. It was really cool. Then we got to the center where the volcano erupts from. It was a huge lake that is super acidic and hot. The acidity of the water is -0.5 on the pH scale. We didn’t even know you could go negative on that scale! Originally that lake wasn’t there, but erosion in the crater and landslides caused the lake to grow from a small puddle of water. The water level rises and falls constantly based on the amount of stem coming up from beneath, and at one point it almost overflowed. Also, the color of the water apparently changes too. Today it was a grayish green, but sometimes it’s all gray, and sometimes it has been red!

The eruptions and landslides cause the landscape to change continuously. In the hot spots, there is water that is boiling because it’s so hot. Also, there is a stream that flows across the island. The water is very warm and is apparently safe (they told us to taste it but we didn’t!) but it’s hydrochloric acid with a pH of 2 (which is the same pH as Coke!).

After the island tour, they took us back to Whakatane and on the way we saw dolphins! They weren’t as big or as playful as the ones that Jenny and I saw on the cruise in Paihia, but we got some pictures and Paul got to see them, so that was really cool. When we got back to Whakatane, we drove back to Tauranga and dropped off the rental car. It was a long day, so we passed out when we got back to the hotel.