After visiting Rawhiti cave we decided to make a couple of other quick stops before heading back to Christchurch. The first place on our list was Labyrinth Rocks Walkway.
This was a small park on the the edge of town, you actually you follow signs to the dump before pulling over at the car park. On one side of the road are flat fields with sheep but on the opposite side is the entrance to the park which immediately takes you into a rock maze.
We decided to skip picking up a map and just wandered through the walkways admiring the miniature karst limestone canyons and weathered rocks never knowing what to expect around the next corner.
From Labyrinth Rocks we continued on to Te Waikoropupu Springs. The trail to the springs took us through some beautiful forest with indigenous manuka and kanuka trees along with areas of regenerating beech podocarp.
The forest was full of streams and rivers and at times the trail became a boardwalk which made a fun change and allowed us to look into the clear water.
The trail ended at a bridge over the springs from where we could see the water bubbling up through the rock. The Te Waikoropupu Springs are the largest freshwater springs in NZ and discharge at 14,000 litres of water per second. Standing on the bridge behind us was dense forest and yet we looked out over the spring watching the water pouring out.
The springs contain some of the clearest water ever measured and has a visibility of 63 metres.
The clarity of the water is close to optically pure water and apparently clearer water is only found beneath Antarctica’s near-frozen Weddell Sea. The clarity of the water gave it that turquoise tint that I had only ever previously seen in glacial melt-water and it was amazing the think that it was just due to the natural filtration through the rock here that the water reaches this clarity.
Away from the main springs, even the side pools had beautifully clear water that were deceptively deep.
Leaving the springs behind we headed back inland towards Christchurch. We stopped in the foothills to enjoy a beautiful view of the Southern Alps complete with their first snowfall of the year.
