White Island

We’d booked our trip to White Island many weeks ago. Sacha had expressed an interest in seeing some of New Zealand’s geology, so we thought a visit to an active volcano would be just the ticket. The boat leaves from Whakatane at 0915, which is about an hour’s drive from Rotorua, so we were up and out of the house before eight for the drive. It was raining, but we weren’t about to let a little thing like that stop us: we’d contacted the tour operator the night before, and they’d told us to call early in the morning for a final check on whether the trip was going ahead. They gave us the green light, and off we went.

We got a bit caught up in commuter traffic as we were entering Whakatane, but made it to the White Island rendezvous with ten minutes in hand – enough time to read the somewhat frightening disclaimer of liability, and sign away our rights to blame the company if anything goes wrong. “It’s a live volcano: if it erupts, it’s not our fault.” We boarded the boat, the Pee Jay 5, with around 50 others, and took the long and choppy ride out to White Island – a trip of about 90 minutes. A few people, myself included, felt a bit queasy on the way out, and had to be seated outside at the rear of the boat, looking back at the horizon.

Before leaving the boat, we were given another safety talk – what to do in the event of an eruption or landslide. We were also issued with hard hats and gas masks, and instructed in their use. Then it was off to the island on a RIB, as there isn’t anywhere suitable for the Pee Jay 5 to moor.

The island has been previously inhabited by sulphur miners, and has been owned by various people before the current owners, who have an agreement with the Government to keep it as a conservation area. The tour around the island led us round some active steam vents, where the sulphur condensing was clearly visible, as well as bubbling pools of water. The smell of hydrogen sulphide was pretty strong, but the vents also give out sulphur dioxide and hydrogen chloride, which when mixed with water form sulphuric and hydrochloric acids respectively – this catches in your throat and makes your eyes water. When you get a waft of it towards you, you realise that the gas masks aren’t just for show, and we were all wearing them for a lot of the time whilst walking around the active areas. We went up to the edge of the current active crater, and looked down at the activity below. The island is classified as active class 1 – which means that thee are signs of activity but no eruption imminent. If the volcano was closer to human habitation it would be class 2, but its remoteness knocks it down a grade.

Steam, sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide comes out of the ground

Those gas masks aren't just for show!

Boiling mud pools

The tour also gave us some insight into the lives of the sulphur miners who used to live there, and the ruins of the sulphur works (abandoned in 1933 when the company went bankrupt). Amazingly, there is both plant and animal life on the island – grasses and pohutukawa trees, and colonies of seabirds, notably Australasian gannets.

Industrial archaeology

We had a packed lunch back on board, then set off back to the mainland with a much smoother ride, as the swell and the wind were behind us. We got back around 4pm, and went to find a cake and teas/coffees before driving back to Rotorua. We’d been lucky with the weather all day as, although showers had been forecast all day, they held off whilst we were on the island, and it only rained whilst we were aboard or driving.

Chocolate & Wine

After breakfast at café Ujazi, where Nicola again ran into a colleague from Wellington, we popped into the i-site to find out about gannet tours. The world’s largest mainland gannet colony is found at the picturesquely-named Cape Kidnappers. This is only accessible via authorised guided tours – there is no access for ordinary vehicles. Unfortunately, around the end of March the gannets start to depart for Australia, so we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and we would save this particular adventure for another time…even though the leaflet tells us that it’s “more fun than you ever imagined!”

Instead, (and after checking that it was open) we drove out to the chocolate factory at Silky Oak Chocolates. This has a museum of chocolate, which we dutifully toured, and watched some cringeworthy Cadbury’s TV adverts from the 50s and 60s. We then headed to the shop and bought a selection of chocolates, and went to the café for a cup of extreme chocolate with chilli. This turned out to be more like chocolate sauce than hot chocolate, and was topped with whipped cream and chillis.

Extreme chocolate with chilli

We sat outside as it was a lovely sunny morning, and were watched by some extremely podgy-looking sparrows. Wonder what their diet consists of?

Next on the agenda was to visit some of the Hawke’s Bay wineries to be found in the area. The intention was to get some lunch at one of these, but we were thwarted in this ambition, as it appears to be an incredibly popular pastime to go to a vineyard for lunch on Easter Sunday – who knew? Both the vineyards we tried were fully booked. So we tasted the wines at Te Awanga and Elephant Hill, and bought some wine.

The elephant at Elephant Hill vineyard

We drove to nearby Havelock North, a small town south of Napier, and found ourselves a pub to have a quick lunch in – fish and chips and pasta, nothing too exciting. Afterwards we explored Havelock North on foot, but with very little open, this didn’t take us long.

In the early evening we went to explore the wetlands and estuary area just outside Napier. It was largely deserted, with just the occasional oystercatcher and heron to be seen. We walked around and took some pictures, then came home.