I have never experienced a volcanic region before, and there are many parts of New Zealand that could be described as active. There have been major eruptions here as recent as the mid-ninties, and only a few days ago there was a serious lahar which served to emphasise that mother nature still has some real kick and bite in this modern age.
We visited the hot springs at -- insert name here when I can actually remember it, let alone spell it -- and it was like stepping into some alien environment. There were bubbling pools of mud, boiling sections of lake, monstrous cave-ins and craters, even soap-assisted geysers (to keep a geyser regular, soap is added to cause an eruption. A geyser enema -- who'd have thought?). The sulphurous rotten egg smell that pervades everything is not noxious, more ... evocative.
But the thing that left a lasting impression on me was the incredible range of colours. There were pools of emerald green, mixed with tinged-blue water. And the reds ... the long garish streaks of ochre that looked like open, steaming wounds.
I'll post some photos when I get back, and they'll give you a taste. But they cannot do justice to seeing it with the naked eye. A roiling, rilling, shifting, multi-hued landscape, hot and alive. It is a sight to behold.
