Best of all there was a hot water spring and stream with yet more silica terracing, but this time coming almost to your feet. I was astonished to see a sparrow land on it, so I gave the edge closest to me a poke with my brolly but it was liquid, obviously the water content that could be seen running over the silica pooled at the edge.
The water looked pretty poisonous but it couldn't be that bad if the birds were in there.
We walked back to the path where it becomes a nature trail heading down to the lake. It starts as a grass/swampland way with flax and pampas and shrubs, then into forest and continues along the delta of the stream which was teeming with bird life. We saw a pied stilt first that was shouting the odds, but to who we don't know because we only saw the one. Then there were ducks of various kinds including the New Zealand scaup, blue duck and paradise shelduck, then lots of black swan whose cry sounds like trumpets and other birds we were unable to identify. We sat at a bird watching hide for ages.
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