White Island – visiting an active volcano
At the best of times, I would have really enjoyed this trip. I mean how often do you get to walk around on an active volcano? Unfortunately the boat ride from Whakatane was really rough, with waves reaching heights of a meter. Apparently they can get up to 10 meters but 1 meter was bad enough. I was violently sea sick throughout the ride and super queasy even after we disembarked. The island was stunning. We wore masks to protect us from the strong sulphuric acid smell. Looking into the volcano itself was a little bit disappointing because it didn’t contain lava, but also exciting because active volcano!!
The boat ride back wasn’t a whole lot better but I managed to sleep through most of it. It took me the rest of the day to recover. I was supposed to go to Rotorua that evening but unfortunately I had to extend my stay in the shitty hostel to recover from the dehydration.
Looking down into boiling pools of sulphuric acid inside the volcano