Well, doing my reseach on our latest venture to White Island and I've discovered that it is an active andesite stratovolcano, bit of a mouthful! And it's privately owned.The full Māori name for the island is 'Te Puia o Whakaari', meaning 'The Dramatic Volcano'.
It is New Zealand's only active marine volcano and the most accessible volcano on earth, attracting scientists and volcanologists worldwide as well as many tourists. Here are the first tourists to visit! Visitors nowadays wear hard hats & gas masks!
They tried doing sulphur mining there, but in 1914 there was a lahar, which killed all the workers (the only survivor was the camp cat, Peter the Great.)There was a major eruption in 1981 which altered the island’s landscape and decimated the pōhutukawa forest. So now, Rangitoto is the largest pohutukawa reserve.
The large crater created at that time now contains a lake. We'll be going there!
The last eruption was on July 27, in 2000 which blanketed the island with mud and scoria and a new crater appeared. That doesn't seem so long ago, does it?
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