Whakatane

Whakatane is a nice Surprise though - set on river estuary, backed and bisected by a huge cliff, and with a fantastic beach, Ohope, just a short bus ride or 2 1/2 hour hike away. I choose to get the bus that afternoon, and spend the rest of the day there. Then in the evening I head back to the hostel to wait in suspense with the other 5 at the hostel who are hoping to be on the tour tomorrow for PeeJays tours to call us to confirm that the weather conditions are right for the 80min sail out to the island. Luckily, at around 8pm, all our Mobile ring in sucession - we're going to walk on the Volcano!!!

Our 9am sail sets off, and it's great, the hostel group sit on the back of the boat with the wind our hair, the sun shining down. And then the sea-sickness starts to hit - first the kids, then quite a few others. I wasn't expecting it since I never get motion sick, but within 30 mins I'm as pale as most of the other passengers, huddled up on aseat and wondering when the rough, bouncy trip will be over! Then someone spots a dolphin - leaping out of the water in the cliche fashion, and suddenly i feel fine again. Dolphins! It's brilliant - they swim along the prow of the boat, five or six of them, leaping and diving, and everyone crowds round the front to see them, suddenly cured of sea-sickness.

When we arrive at White Island the sea is rough - there are even concerns we won't be able to land at all. There's no way of mooring the boat directly, so we have to pile off in groups into a little dinghy, and cross that way. It gets a whole lot more exciting when a very large american man gets into our boat and upsets it's balance, a lot. The crew seem pretty concerned about the crossing - when we finally manage to moor onto the makeshift jetty, the guy driving the boat urges us to scramble out of the boat as fast as possible. One girl gets her leg trapped between the boat and the wooden jetty, but luckily it's only badly bruised, nothing broken. The whole incident brings home that this isn't a disneyland trip - not only are we about to wander about on an active volcano, there's also the distinct possibility we won't be able to get back off if they seas become to rough!

When we've gathered on the 'beach' of the island, created after an eruption which blew out one side of the volcano's funnel, we get a safety run down and a warning that our trip may be cut short if the skipper thinks the seas are getting to high and rough to make crossing back to the main vessel safe. Then the tour begins - we put on our hard hats, sling our gasmasks around our necks and accept a handful of sweets to suck in case the sulphurous gases become too strong. We follow our pink-hatted guide over the white and yellow chemical deposits left on the rock, crunching over the basalt and pumice rock left from a previous eruption. Ahead of us is the crater lake, and a vent which is pumping out steam at an alarming speed and pressure - there's no doubt that this volcano is very much alive!! The smell of sulphur is all around, and as we move closer to the vent, skirting boiling, bubbling mudpools, the heat increases.

For the whole trip there's a palpable sense of excitement and disbelief - that we're actually walking on a live volcano, one which could, potentially erupt at any moment (the threat is a 1 on the 1-to-5 scale, the scientists can never rule it out). We peer over the edge of the crater lake, gazing down into a steaming, frothing bright green alek with a PH rating of -2 - that's incredibly acidic. As our guide quips, you'd only take one swim in there!

At the end of the trip we look around the ruins of a sulphur mining factory which operated on the island in the 1930s. The guys living there had tough lives; absolutely reliant on ship deliveries for food and fresh water, their teeth blackened by sulphur fumes, and their clothes all but eaten away by the chemicals in the air. The factory was closed down in the 1930s due to lack of profit from the low-grade sulphur.

After a slightly sketchy and wet trip from the slippery jetty to the boat, the journey back is a lot less green-tinged that the outward one. The group of backpackers from the Windsor sit at the front of the boat, spotting flying fish, two seals, and then more dolphins! Volcano tour, boat-ride, nature-eco-tour... sweet as!

The final surprise of the trip is when we can't get back into Whakatane harbour due to the low-tide. Another dinghy trip calls! Since there's only two dinghy's, we have to wait an hour to get back ashore. Still, on the way back we get a personal meet'n'greet from Moko, the young, wild bottle-nosed dolphin who has taken up residence in Whakatane harbour for a month (he likes to steals people's surfboards and fetch a ball).

written by  LizIsHere on April 3, 2010 from Whakatane, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand & Australia 2010
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