Lake Taupo - 2 days

I have combined the two days into one blog so if you have read the blog yesterday you will need to have another look. My apologies if everything looks muddly. The first picture above is taken of Lake Taupo, looking towards Mt Ruapehu. You will need to look back at the blogs about Rotorua to see the photos which I am about to upload.

I forgot to say that Rotorua shopping area is still laid out as before and used as a regional shopping centre for New Zealanders as is Taupo. The only difference is the number of Asian restaurants, which no doubt cater for the Thai, Japanese and Indonesian tourists. Of course there are the usual McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Burger King restaurants dominating the best part of Taupo, i.e. the foreshore.

After two nights at an excellent Top10 Holiday Park ($40 per night) in Rotorua, we are in an even better Family Park ($40 per night) in Taupo. However, the internet access at both of these camping grounds is dreadful (cannot upload photos) and expensive ($8 per hour). I have just found that I can upload photos tonight but it is very slow. So frustrating!

The drive here was a little scary as the road was busy and there was a very gusty wind. We stopped at a Wairakei Terraces which is a man made thermal area. The area was formally known to the Maori as Waiora and to the Europeans as Geyser Valley, and was once one of the most active thermal areas in the world, with 22 geysers and 240 mud pools and springs. In 1958 all this changed with the geothermal power project. The idea is to recreate the environment that was there before 1958. It was very interesting to see the work that had been carried out, especially the terraces as the silica does not take long to build up.

We then stopped at the Huka Falls. We expected to see high falls but in fact the water moves through a very narrow canyon (200,000 litres per second) and expels dramatically into the wider river. Not the place where you would want to go white water rafting. It was very impressive.

On the Thursday afternoon we went to the Taupo De Bretz Hot Spa Resort which is in the valley beside the camping ground. This costs $4 each entry to the pool. It was very showery and quite cold so the water really warmed us up.

Today (Friday) was beautiful, sunny although very nippy still as there was a strong wind blowing initially.

We walked the 5 km return journey to Taupo, plus walked around the shopping area which is quite extensive.

When we returned we went straight to the hot springs for a relaxing hour and a half just sitting in the hot water. The hottest pool is 40 degrees and the second pool we used was 35 degrees. I do find that 15 minutes in the hot pool is enough at a time. The hot springs here do not smell of sulphur so are not as acidity as the ones in Rotorua. The setting was just beautiful. We are becoming quite addicted to concept of the hot springs