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Trailor on Tour
We had to be up quite early today as we had booked a boat trip out to White Island, which has NZ most active volcano.
The boat was called Pee-Jay and we were all aboard and raring to go by 0915. The trip out to the island took about 1 and a half hours, and I spent the trip sat right at the front (pretending to be Kate Winslett in Titanic).
The island was truly breathtaking and like nothing I have ever seen before. As we approached the bay there was a huge area of yellow staining in the sea where there has been some seepage from the volcano. The whole island was hissing and gurgling with jets of steam escaping all over the place and bright yellow sulphur crystals glowing in the sunlight. We had to don hard hats and gas masks to walk round and visit the crater, which is a steaming turquoise lake. The last eruption occurred in 2000, with 100,000 cubic metres of rock being ejected. The whole place looked like a make believe film set from somewhere like Universal Studios and I'm surprised it has never been used in a movie, maybe as Mars or something similar. You will have to look at the pictures when I can get them downloaded and I only hope they do the place justice.
When we got back to the boat a few of us jumped from the boat and went for a swim in the sulphur water, despite having seen sharks on the journey out!!!!!! There has never been an attack there, but I was only in the water long enough to cool down and then back on board for lunch, before heading back and getting back to our van at about 1630. One of the best days of my trip so far - if any of you visit NZ you have to go.
We then drove down ro Rotorua where we will camp the night. Oh no, the internet people are having a blazing row and effing and blinding - time to leave. S xx
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