How were you woken up this morning? Because I was woken up at 6AM by Millie asking “Mom, I have a question. Are you a conjoined twin?” Somehow she accepted my answer of “No, go back to sleep” and lay next to me for another hour.

When we got up it was raining heavily, and then it suddenly stopped and became a beautiful sunny day. We got ready and set out for Waiotapu. We paid the ridiculous entry price and went in.

The “thermal wonderland” is a few trail loops that take you around various thermal pools and craters, which are caused by steam coming up from the ground, eroding it, and then it collapsing into who knows where. So basically huge sink holes with boiling water at the bottom of them. Terrifying.

The pools are known for their interesting colors, caused by various elements and chemicals like sulphur and iron. This also causes them to stink like eggs and farts.

We did all the loops which took about 90 minutes. We were surprised by how tired we felt. Our walking endurance has gone downhill since we’ve been doing so much driving.

The pools were all very cool looking. Here is Nick attempting to explain tectonic plates to Millie and her listening unenthusiastically.

We came back to the house for a late lunch. We have plenty of leftovers and things to snack on. Then we went back out to the Mud Spa. This was an opportunity to bathe in the stinky, but apparently healing, waters that we had just seen.

I’m not sure how much this helped my skin, but we had a fun time painting each other with warm mud.

After the mud bath we relaxed in the non-mud hot pool.

On our way out, Millie had to stop to gawk at the sky. She took a picture with her little camera.

When we got home, we immediately put our wet bathing suits in the washing machine, and when we took them out they smelled awful from the sulphuric water, like farts and crude oil. I did 3 separate and long baking soda soaks for them which barely touched the scent. They’re on their second long cycle in the machine now, but we’ve all resolved to leaving them behind if need be.

We all took showers because we also smell like sulphur, and we continue to even after bathing. It is quite gross.