Arrived in Taupo today, a town on the banks of the massive Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand. It’s a big, busy place, very popular tourist area for obvious reasons. Not just the lake itself but it’s renowned for its geothermal attractions, so looking forward to exploring over the next few days. Very pleased with our Airbnb so all good there. Went on a little early explore to Huka Falls, which is quite an impressive site. Then went to have a look at one of the small towns on the lake with a beach, which we’ll probably try out on Tuesday.
Day 2 in Taupo we went and checked out a geothermal attraction called Craters of the Moon. This is well worth a visit to see steaming jets pour out of the ground, due to vast underground boiling lakes, a legacy of thousands of years of volcanic activity in the area.
We also went back to Huka Falls for another look because it’s just such a great sight. Apparently 200,000 litres of water per second plunge over the final fall, enough to fill 5 olympic size swimming pools every minute.
Day 3 we had a nice chilled out day, I had a nice little run around the banks of Lake Taupo and then we went to the botanical gardens, which were lovely, peaceful and so well layed out. After that we drove to Kinloch which is a nice small town about 20 km from Taupo. It has a lovely beach which we enjoyed chilling out on for a few hours. Got a busy couple of days ahead, so it was nice to relax and enjoy the weather once again.
So day 4 was amazing, some of the sights we saw just blow your mind. The whole area of this part of New Zealand is active volcano territory. Started with a drive to Wai o Tapu thermal wonderland near Rotorua. It made Craters of the Moon feel inconsequential, really amazing sights and a must do if you’re in this area. Cost was $90, so about £20 each, so well worth it.
Then it was a short drive to Waimangu Volcanic Valley, again it was a wow wow experience . Did the full walk, which is about 4km and takes about 2 hours, and then you get a bus back up, total cost $150 or about £33 each, again well worth it.
Finished the day with a free visit to a place called Kerosene Creek, which is a natural hot water stream with little waterfalls and pools that you can soak in. Temperature felt like about 35 degrees, took a couple of beers down with us and chilled in a beautiful natural environment, no attempt to commercialise it in any way, which is great. Lets hope that continues because it’s a wonderful place. I’m going to be sharing loads of images from today so hope you enjoy.
Into day 5 and we were wondering how you top a day like yesterday, well you don’t, not easily anyway. Even so we had another wonderful drive into the Tongariro national park in the central plateau of New Zealand North island, and parked up at a village called Whatapapa. This is a big skii season resort in the winter, but lots of hikers enjoy all sorts of walks in the summer months. It’s home to 3 volcanoes, Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe. We decided to take a popular walk called the Taranaki falls track, about a 2 hours return walk. It was really beautiful, and the falls at the end were wonderful. Drove back to Tapou, had a little walk beside the lake and finished our time here with a nice cold beer with a lake view, no surprise there then.
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