March 3, 2026
Link to Heinrich's thermal observations: http://geysers.org/wordpress/2026/03/03/observations-for-2026-march-03/
We woke up to a sunny but cold day. The temperature was below 50 and it felt like fall. After eating Shami's wonderful breakfast we headed out to our first geothermal trip for the week at Waiotapu.
We immediately headed to the view point for Waiotapu Geyser to see if there was a possibility that it might erupt. But the geyser was dry. There was no need to wait there, so we decided to go see the daily morning soaping of Lady Knox Geyser.
The experience at Lady Knox was underwhelming with the entire geyser eruption lasting only a little over a minute, and the sounds of the eruption were drowned out by the guide singing a song. Also some very rude Germans thought they could stand directly in front of us to watch the geyser, and when we asked them to move, they proceeded to squeeze right next to me on the bench so I had barely enough room to move. And I had a pretty bad view of the geyser for photos since a railing was directly blocking my view of part of the vent. So I will not post a video now but will have a link later when Heinrich uploads his much better video.
After the eruption we followed the long line of cars back to the main entrance and walked back to check on Waiotapu Geyser again. There was no change. We waited a while to see if some water might appear in the vent, but nothing happened. It was still cold outside, and the wind chill made it feel even colder. At that point I had enough and decided to walk back to the car. Heinrich wanted to stay longer, which was okay with me: I would just rest for a while and return later if he called me about any improvement.
I took my time walking back and snapped photos of some of my favorite features along the way.
Back at the car, I had a nice little nap until eventually Heinrich rejoined me. We left the park early and drove back to see the free Waiotapu mudpot which we both had enjoyed watching the night before.
Next we drove to the Rainbow Mountain trailhead and took a short hike to the overlook to Crater Lake. This was a stop we had talked about doing on our previous visits but never really had the time. It was a nice hike, and the lake was a beautiful shade of light blue.
We drove back to Rotorua and stopped at the New World supermarket to stock up on food for the next few days. Then we drove back to the room and fixed a spaghetti and cole slaw dinner.
After dinner we enjoyed using the hot tub and watching the steam from the geysers at Te Puia.