Fractured Reality

"You'll sleep well tonight". These were the words of the guide when he picked me up from Rotorua. Apparently the boat trip, coupled with the sulphurous air has a soporific effect on visitors to White Island - an active volcano in the Bay of Plenty, 48 km off the shore of New Zealand's North Island.

He wasn't wrong, but it may have been due to the extra travel sickness pills I was given when we reached the shore - I threw up the first set - along with my breakfast - on the way out. But it was worth it, just about.

White Island is desolate - the very epitome of a blasted landscape. Rocks of red and yellow, acidic steam issuing from vents in the ground, and in the centre a boiling blue-green crater lake of unknown depth. The land has shifted considerably since the last time measurements could be taken, and with temperatures near 80°C and a ph of -0.5, no one seems keen on taking new soundings. When the world ends, this is what it will look like.

New Zealand appears to be what you get if you cross England with a geological fault line, and throw in a bunch of adrenaline junkies. At times it feels a lot like home - particularly the weather, which has mostly been grey and wet - anything between a near-constant drizzle to a torrential downpour. They drive on the left, there is similar looking foliage, and Auckland could easily be transposed to somewhere in the Midlands and not be out of place, except for the volcanoes - the city is built on 49 of them, all dormant (that's dormant, not extinct) - and the inclination of the locals to attach themselves to thin ropes and jump off anything with a bit of height.

Then there's places like White Island and Rotorua, where steam pours from the ground and the air smells of sulphur (which for some reason brings to mind rice cakes rather than eggs). New Zealand routinely suffers earthquakes and eruptions, which seem to be shrugged off by the populace - at least the ones I have spoken to.

I've also been to Waitomo, a town on top of a huge system of limestone caves where you can go black water rafting on inner tubes from car tires, travelling through caverns full of stalactites and glow worms. This is a country which packs so much diversity into such a small space, and I have relatively little time to explore it. A return trip is pretty much guaranteed - I've already missed a number of things I wanted to see and do, including the Tongariro Crossing (due to bad weather), so this is a serious request for companions for my return journey here, probably for about 3 weeks in November next year. If you can drive it'll be a plus, and seeing the roads here I believe you'd enjoy it.