After the underwhelming if mirth-inducing Lady Knox Geyser, we are happy to wander without expectations.
There is a different bliss in not knowing what comes next.
Still, we have heard one of Wai-O-Tapu’s geothermal wonders is its Champagne Pool. And when we arrive at its rim, its sulphurous odour preceding its reveal by quite a fair bit, we understand why.
The steaming crater, the clouds of gaseous stench, the efflux of carbon dioxide that gives it its name. Instead of a glass of bubbly, you have champagne from the remnants of a mud volcano.
Wai-O-Tapu is Māori for “sacred waters” and it’s easy to see how legends of rainbow ponds and the breath of gods could arise.
Deposits of arsenic and antimony sulfides form a ring of showstopping orange. Circling it, winter white silica sinter around the pool’s perimeter. Mars and Saturn intertwined. Epic. Mythic.
And perhaps, we wager, one day a Venus would emerge from this mud champagne. Earth will return to earth, and we not here. All dissipates yet love remains.