White island is no stroll in the park. This noisy, active volcano, also one of New Zealand's best dive sites, will keep you fascinated on top as well as underneath.

Forty eight kilometres from the town of Whakatane on the North Island’s east coast lies White Island; a wild walk through steam hissing fumaroles and constant plumes of acrid gases.

It’s an uncanny place where sulphur gets up your nose and hot water screams out of vents reaching temperatures up to 8000 C.

It’s not going to blow up. But then who really knows? Like a grumpy fire breathing dragon White Island is as unpredictable as it is active.

Looking down 100-metres into the crater is mesmerising as steam coils and twists hypnotically over an unnatural fluorescent green surface like fumes from a witch’s cauldron.

The brick red walls are splattered with brilliant yellow sulphur deposits and steam hisses out of walls so deeply gouged they resemble scratch marks left by giant prehistoric claws.

Of A grade scientific importance White Island is the northernmost active volcano in the Taupo Volcanic Zone; a 250km-long zone of intense volcanism that marks the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates.

Underneath New Zealand these two huge plates are grinding together causing about 14,000 earthquakes each year, of which between 100 and 150 are big enough to be felt.

More than 10,000 tourists visit White Island every year on boat and flight tours.

Boat Tour

On the boat journey there’s a good chance of seeing a pod of dolphins leaping the white caps. Also commonly sighted are albatross, whales as well as fur seals basking on rocks around White Island’s coast.

Visitors are provided with bright yellow hard hats and gas masks for their guided tour around the island.

Wind shifts can envelope you in steam irritating the throat and fogging up glasses making it impossible to see the track. The gas mask keeps breathing comfortable until the wind changes again.

Craters and fumaroles continually emit several hundred to several thousand tonnes of steam, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide gases per day.

In wet weather acid gases combine with moisture forming droplets that return to the ground as acid rain. Not nice, especially as it stings eyes and skin, and bleaches the colour from clothes.

Small wonder nothing grows here - hardly the sort of island that tempts you to sling a hammock between two trees. That is if you could find any. All that remains of the island’s Pohutakawa forest are blackened stumps.

A former owner described it as "the most desolate, God-forsaken and, at the same time, the most awe-inspiring place on the face of the earth."

White Island has a history of hostility to people and their endeavours. The many attempts to mine sulphur have ended in bankruptcy and tragedy.

Processing plant survived only a matter of months in the corrosive atmosphere and then in 1914 a crater wall collapsed. Thousands of tonnes of boiling mud and debris flowed to sea killing 10 miners.

Yet the lack of vegetation on land is more than made up for by an abundance found on the two-thirds of the island under water.

The Diving

Described as some of the best diving in the country, divers are literally mobbed by fish that inhabit the lush kelp forests. Boulders are home to soft orange corals, sponges and firebuck sea stars.

Warm currents bring a colourful array of tropical marine life as well as some large fish like the bronze whaler, blue sharks, mako sharks as well as marlin, tuna and kingfish.

But the big attraction is diving a live volcano which could be even more exciting than walking on one.

Other Great Volcanoes & Islands

• A volcanic walk accross the popular and scenic Tongariro Crossing is probably one of the best one day walks in the world.
• To see many species of endangered New Zealand birds all in one convenient place you can't do better than Tiritiri Matangi Island.

How to Get There

• Boat and helicopter tours leave from Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. Whakatane is 4hours drive from Auckland or 45 minutes by plane.
• For accommodation, boat, flight and dive tours see Whakatane's website.