David and Elana's Pictures

Top > Our Vacations > 2004-10 New Zealand Honeymoon > 01.Rotorua > 07.Hell's Gate

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Hell's Gate is a geothermal area which boasts lots of thermal pools, mud pools, etc.

Many of these pictures display former volcanic rock amid extremely hot water, sometimes bubbling.

We came across a friendly peacock in Hell's Gate.

The peacock and David seemed to get along.

The steam is from the boiling water in these crags.

They say that Hell's Gate is even better when it's raining as it looks more dark and dismal.

A hot water springs.

Steam creeping around the corner.

A boiling mud pool. They also had a spa at Hell's gate where they used mud like this (though cooler) for facial and body masks.

They come up with lots of funny names for the volcanic pools, including Map of Australia, for self-explanatory reasons.

The minerals in the water frequently turned them different colors and the air reeked of sulfur, even in the town of Rotorua.

In the foreground is a a built up pile of volcanic ash, collapsible at any moment. Beyond that is the area that was dessimated by the volcano and beyond that, the area that survived and thrived.

When looking over the edge of a cliff into a deep pool of volcanic mud, we saw lots of jumping bubbles and tried to capture them.

If you look towards the back of this picture, you will see the explosion of a second boiling bubble.

Here, you can see the energy and force with which these bubbles were exploding out of the water. It was clear why they wanted tourists on cliff away from the pool.

A warm pool that was cool enough to put our hands in.

We each took turns.