'Next best thing to pink and white terrraces' opens in Taupo

The backers of Taupo's newest tourist attraction are keen to stress they have not recreated Lake Rotomahana's famous Pink and White Terraces.

But the man who has led the project admits his company hopes the Wairakei Terraces will be the next best thing.

Jim Hill, Taupo-based chief executive of New Zealand Education and Tourism Corp (Netcor), has been working towards his dream of opening a walkway winding past geothermal features at Wairakei Tourist Park since 1996.

The terraces, situated within the Waiora Valley beside the Wairakei thermal field, will open to the public from August 3.

The site is named after its main attraction -- the 54m-wide, 70m-long silica terraces.

Netcor's tourism and executive manager Raewyn Hill is confident they will draw people from around the world.

"The multi-hued and cascading terraces are a spectacle to behold and offer a look back in time to the wonder and beauty of the geothermal activity that once existed at Wairakei and at Tarawera," Mrs Hill said.

The key to creating the silica terraces has been the use of Contact Energy's waste geothermal fluid.

Waste fluid is piped from the geothermal field into two header lakes, which flow over the terraces, leaving behind a coral-like deposit of apricot coloured silica.

The terraces are not the only attraction at the site.

A walkway meanders past 20 features, including Maori carvings, native plants and an animal park.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)