White Island Tour

Yesterday I went to White Island as a birthday present from Mum 🙂 It was AMAZING! It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.

But lets go back to the beginning…

It started at the ungodly hour of 5.20 am. I got up, showered, ate… all that fun stuff. Then we had to be out the door by 6.20 because the boat leaves at 7 am.
We arrived at PJ White Island Tours and paid for our booked tickets, got our boarding passes and a coffee for Penny, who was finding it difficult to function without one lol.

Then we boarding onto the ship- PJ IV, the sun hadn’t even risen over the hills yet.

After sitting around for a while, the boat took off at 7 on the dot.

and the sun rose!!!

The trip was long… an hour and 20 minutes, and boy howdy was it rough. The sea was so chopping and it was so windy, the boat was shaking so badly.

I’d say around 40% of people on board were sea sick, and 30% of them were throwing up. I felt extremely sick too and was all prepared with my bag, but mum gave me this little wafer thing that you stick on your tongue when you feel sick and it makes you feel better.

It worked fairly quickly and saved me from bringing up my breakfast…

Eventually we got there, and I’ve never been so grateful to see solid land in my entire life.

We had to take a little inflatable boat thing to get from the big boat onto the island. It was bumpy and everyone got a wet backside.

We all clambered out and huddled in a group. We had to wear our helmets at all times, it was non-negotiable. We also had gas masks around our necks in case we needed them. I was grateful for them, I ended up needing them quite often. The fumes are so strong, they send you into a coughing fit and completely tighten up your throat.

Here’s the picture of the day, I laugh EVERY TIME I see it 😀 It’s Mum and I, just after getting onto the island.

I think it’s mum that looks the funniest.

After that, our group all headed off to check out some steam craters.

Those things are INTENSE!!! They blow out steam so quickly, and it’s so hot. It’s also really gassy, so when we were close to it, we used our gas-masks to help us breath properly.

From there, we carried on a little further to a big lake.

That lake is something you DON’T wanna be falling into. It’s about a -2 on the pH scale. (For those of you not familiar with the pH scale, 1 is acid, 14 is alkaline, 7 is neutral).

We had to wear our gas masks because it was just too strong to breath without them.

We continued on from there up to the highest point we would be going. It was VERY windy!

From there we went to check out a mud pool.

Then onto our last stop, where we had to cross a stream which apparently had the freshest water. But when we saw it it was grey coz it had ash in it 😦

We were also shown the alternate docking bay. They showed how far the tide comes in by pointing out where the drift wood lay.

We headed to our final spot, the Factory.

Back in the day, hundreds of years ago, people use to actually work on White Island. Seems ridiculous, I know. But they did and they worked in a factory until one day there was a massive landslide, which was so powerful it wiped out everything, destroyed the factory, and covered it in 2 meters of debris.

That big circular thing exploded back in the day as well, killing one of the factory workers.

After that, it was time to head back to the boat! I wasn’t too keen though lol, after the rocky ride over, I was a little nervous.

But I made it!! And took a photo because it looked beautiful 🙂

I survived White Island!!!

The ride back was actually really nice 🙂 it was really steady and smooth, the weather was beautiful, I felt good coz I had my sunblock on, annddd…. the highlight of the trip….?

DOLPHINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They were so incredible to watch! and there were SO MANY of them, it was unbelievable!

It totally made my day 🙂 it was a perfect ending. I was so excited, I took so many photos (not many good ones though, they were too quick!)

here’s my all time favourite dolphin shot:

🙂 Aren’t they incredible?

Anyway, that’s the end of my White Island tour. I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you’re a tourist, or even just a local WHK citizen, this is something I very highly recommend you try. It’s an amazing experience, something that you’ll never forget.

Have an fabulous day 🙂

xoxo