Although New Zealand’s Pink and White Terraces were destroyed in a volcanic eruption in 1886, travellers can still explore this bubbling, boiling landscape today.
Once known as “the eighth Wonder of the World”, the Pink and White Terraces that cascaded down a hillside in New Zealand’s geothermal Rotorua region would have been a spectacular sight to behold. Created by geothermal waters flowing from the Earth’s core that crystallised over hundreds of years, the silica terraces formed tumbling pools, staircases and waterfalls that were filled with warm, mineral-rich waters and steeped in historical and cultural significance.
Before the eruption that destroyed them in the late 19th Century, these natural wonders were New Zealand’s most famous tourist attraction, luring wealthy travellers from around the world to bathe in the salmon-pink waters of the Te Otukapuarangi (Pink) Terraces (“The fountain of the clouded sky” in Māori); and visit the Te Tarata (White) Terraces (also known as “the tattooed rock” due to the patterns created by the crystallised silica), which covered seven acres and descended 30m into Lake Rotomahana.
