Birthstone Rings | A Day At Orakei Korako

A Day At Orakei Korako

Hubby and myself decided to visit Orakei Korako today.

It’s a geothermal area in New Zealand and with my mind full of the wonderful changing colors of the October birthstone it was great to wander round a valley full of geothermal activity and see nature’s own display of color. And no, you won’t find any opal at Orakei Korako but it does show just what an artist’s palette of color she has at her disposal.

Below shows me sitting in front of one of the silica terraces.

That golden color you see in the middle of the image is called Te Kapua (The Cloud) by the Maori people but in “tourist language” has been renamed The Golden Fleece! The color comes from mineral deposits that have transformed the normally white silica into a golden – umm – fleece!

Wilma Verburg’s gorgeous photo below shown under Creative Commons license displays the colors of Orakei Korako much better.

One area that I loved was Ruatapu Cave (Sacred Cave). This cave descends around 120 feet into the ground and is one of only two geothermal caves in the world.

That’s me at the bottom of it and the pool behind me is called Waiwhakaata (Pool of Mirrors) and is supposed to be very good for cleaning jewelry! The tourist brochure assured me that if I left my baubles in the pool for 5 minutes they would come out sparkling. I was tempted – I was wearing a little cat’s eye bracelet – but then I thought of all the things that might go wrong – including me slipping on the very slippery edge of the pool and falling in myself – and you know hubby would have got that photo and decided against it.

The cave is the home of the spirit of a young Maori man who used to be a guide at Orakei Korako but was killed on the Libyan Desert in 1941. I hope his spirit did find its way home and that he enjoys the people admiring Ruatapu Cave.

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