We started out with a fairly short drive which encompassed the birthplace of Rutherford and the oldest pub in New Zealand (not sure whether these two are related).
We also passed a large amount of hops and road-side beer tasting and fruit selling stands. It turned out that the 6.7% beer was a bit strong for 10 in the morning.
The point of interest along the way was a spring, not the bouncy type, but the magic water-source type. This was a particularly vigorous at 10,000 litres per second! Essentially, a sizable river just appeared in a small pool.
The water is reputedly amongst in the clearest in the world, and is either 1 or 10 years old (see appendix 1 for the science bit).
Other than that, we chilled on the beach, drank wine and played rocks, which is a bit like bowls but without the proper equipment.
Tomorrow, we will not climb a mountain, and have backup wine in case we are tempted!
Appendix 1
ReplyDelete- how can bulk water have an age?
-(you were waiting for this one...) what colour is it?
The age is the time since it "starts its life" as rain.
ReplyDeleteAs to the colour, it was pretty clear. It did look a tad green, but that might just have been the colour of the underlying rocks.
It looked particularly good through Hannah's polarised sunglasses which cut through the surface reflections. While we were there, a young American couple turned up, and Hannah offered her her sunglasses to try.
It was one of those great moments where the other person is totally unconvinced (and clearly thinks you're a bit mad) until they try them (mostly out of politeness), and you get a genuine 'wow' out of them.
Don't you love it when physics works? :-)
Oh, and for comparison, the aquifer that pumps vast quantities of fresh water into the Severn tunnel is a measly 500 l/s.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of water. How much were they charging for the mineral water bottled at source?
ReplyDelete