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Jim and Sim's World Adventure
We left Bay of Islands a few days ago and travelled to the Bay of Plenty. Stopped off at a few places on the way. At Miranda we had a dip in the thermal pools on the camp site before we had dinner which was very nice, it was chucking it down with rain. We also stopped at a couple of beaches on the way to Whakatane to get our boat to White Island.
White island is an active volcano which last erupted in 2003. We got the boat to the island, which was a rough sea crossing and it took and hour and a half!!! When we got there we had to get a smaller boat to the jetty, climb a ladder, cross a platform and clamber over some rocks to get onto the island.
We were issued with hard hats and gas masks and told what to do should it erupt or if there was rock fall.
The guides then gave us a tour of the island which was amazing. There was steam gushing out of the holes in the ground and the rock faces, and the noise of it gushing out was really loud. We also stood on the edge of the main crater which had an acid lake about a metre from the top of it. It was really bizarre being able to stand on a volcano. It was really smelly as well:-) There was also a disused sulphur mine on the island where people used to come and work - some people do anything for money!
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