Watch our video here.
A couple of weeks ago, we sat next to a New Zealand tour guide who works for Black Sheep Tours. Her company escorts Americans around New Zealand, taking them to pristine beaches, up and over mountains and onto glaciers and similar natural wonders. We asked her for some recommendations of things to see on the North Island. She listed three top “must sees”:
1. White Island
3. Bay of Islands
We took her recommendations to heart and headed for Whakatane where Pee Jay sat in the harbour ready to take us and about 50 others out to White Island. What wonders awaited us on this sunny Saturday!
White Island sits about 60 miles east of Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. You can make it out just above the horizon as you gaze eastward. It is the northernmost extension of a volcanic rift zone which cuts through the North Island from north to south. At the southern end of this zone sits Mt. Ruapehu, the imposing active volcano, that we climbed past on our trip through Tongariro National Park. Rotorua and Taupo are in the same path and there are many more examples of thermal activity in and around those towns.
White Island is really the top of a marine volcano whose base is submerged on the bottom of the Pacific. It is the second active volcano in New Zealand. It has blown debris on several occasions in the last century, the most recent in 2006. What makes it more interesting is that it is the scene of a once-active sulphur mining operation that was closed down once when all of the miners were killed by a volcanic landslide which swept them into the sea. The only survivor was a tomcat named Peter, who went on to be known as Peter the Great.We recorded much of the tour in a video which is linked to this blog and will give a better feel for the island. It was an experience that touched every one of the senses. There was obviously much to see - steam coming up from vents, yellow sulphur outcroppings and fountains, stark landscape where plants do not grow, rivulets and streams of warm water, and nesting birds oblivious to the volcano which they consider home.
We could hear the power of molten magma changing water to gas and sending it out of narrow openings. We could smell the strong smell of rotten eggs which at one point was so strong that the gas masks we were issued on the boat enabled us to continue breathing. Sulphur is not harmful, but it is irritating to the nose and throat. We would taste the dryness in the back of the throat and the guide offered us hard candy to keep the saliva flowing. The heat was intense and it could be felt. The temperature of the steam is twice as hot as boiling water, indicating just how how molten rock must be. It is just below the surface and monitors watch it carefully to know just how close another eruption might be. We wore hard hats just in case rocks might rain down upon us as we ran back to our waiting boat.
To think that men worked in close proximity to the opening of a volcano is incomprehensible. The mine was last active in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression which affected much of the world. They had little difficulty attracting workers to come and work the mine. They stayed in barracks and all of their food and water was brought to them by boat. After the first destructive event, the mine reopened but the living quarters were moved to the safer side of the island. Apparently, they even had a library where they could spend time after hours. To get to work, they walked a path or rowed a boat.
At one time, the factory separated the sulphur from the surrounding rock, but a blow-up in the factory caused the company to change the process. The miners simply loaded the ore onto boats after the accident and the separation happened at another location away from White Island. This proved to be economically costly and the ability to mine sulphur more cheaply in other locations eventually cause the mine to be abandoned in 1933, after about 10 years of operations.
What remains of the factory is pretty stark. Machinery is rusting badly. Wooden timbers which supported the roof were imported from Oregon, and are still in pretty good condition. But the evidence of sulphur in the air and on the ground is pretty apparent. It makes the place inhospitable and we were relieved to be back on the boat and headed for more friendly places. Junior dolphins escorted us for a time. It was a day to remember.
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