We got up early to catch the Lady Knox geyser exploding at 10:15 on the dot... We were a little confused as to how a geyser could erupt at precisely the same time each day - did it take into account daylight saving? But the answer is once the ampitheatre is full of expectant tourists a "Geyser World" expert pours some fairy liquid into the hole to encourage the mixing of two layers of water at different temperatures. The effect is water spouted about 10m into the air encouraged by lots of photography!

We then made our way over to "Mud World" and were quite mesmerised by the gloopy, smelly mud being spouted erratically into the air. Great fun!

Next, we entered "Thermal World" proper and followed the walking tour around this alien landscape, quite unlike anything I'd ever seen before. There were steaming lakes, rocks coloured yellow, white and red by different minerals and caves (see the photos)!

For lunch we thought we'd try something a little different - Prawn World! Instead of catching our own prawns we simply ate some pre-caught and cooked ones in Shaun's restaurant. It was whilst sitting here that Mum thought she rather fancied a trip on the Huka Falls Jetboat! So, her and Anthony donned their life-jackets for quite-literally a spin down the river. They both had a great time, but I couldn't understand how Mum found this less scary than sea-kayaking!

Back in Taupo we had a chilled out evening. For dinner we had a picnic on the banks of the lake watching a sunset over the hills.