Hawkes Bay to Rotorua, New Zealand

Rotorua Maori historically used these geothermal hot pools to cook their food. the cooking pool has a constant temperature of approximately 93C and although it smells of sulphur and is black, it does not taint the food and in fact the vegetables come out with a really soft skin. Around the edge of the pool it looks like coral. Apparently it is the heat-loving bacteria living there that gets coated with the silica in the water to produce a coral type formation. Select the photo below to see more of this area.

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