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Published: June 26th 2008
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About To Take The Plunge
Not looking at the camera for some reason... Panoramic View: Geothermal Taupo Arrival In Taupo
We arrived in Taupo and had our usual squint through the town in the van. It was a bit bigger than we had expected and had a similar vibe to Queenstown; not least of all in the "extreme sports" field. Choosing a campsite proved to be more taxing than we thought, but we eventually opted for one a short distance from the town centre.
From Tongariro upwards, the area is classified as geothermal. This is basically because this part of the North Island lies on the area where the Indo Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate meet. These plates being two of the different sections that the Earth's crust is broken into. The main consequence of these plates meeting is high tension deep beneath the ground which generally causes earthquakes when the tension is broken. Another result though is volcanic eruption, which the area of Taupo has more of a history of than just earthquakes. Taupo Lake itself is the result of a huge eruption from thousands of years ago, and most of the volcanoes nearby are still classified as active. For us tourists, this doesn't mean it's dangerous (they can usually
predict eruptions and they are few and far between) but it means there are a lot of geothermal areas of hot pools, sulphur pools, geysers, mud pools and generally a lot of steam venting from the ground. It's a pretty weird area and the smells can be a bit overpowering.
Most of the campsites have bought up ground where there is a thermal pool bubbling up and our site was not exception, although we never ended up using it. We headed down to the town centre and had a browse about and visited the information centre, trying to decide how to spend our time here. Afterwards, we stopped off at the Bungy site and watched people falling off a 42 metre high cantilever. This was something that looked too fun to miss out on!
Around The Countryside
The next morning, we opted to drive about the surrounding area to see some of the parts around Taupo. Unfortunately, the lake itself wasn't anything special in this weather as it was pouring rain and covered with mist. Maybe in the summer weather it would be nice to take a boat out, but not today. The lake is famed for
fishing and claims to be the best place in the world for trout, or some title like that. We headed up towards Rotorua instead and stopped first of all at Huka Falls; the most visited national attraction in New Zealand.
With our jackets and hoods wrapped on tight, we got some nice pictures of the gushing falls but due to the weather, there wasn't too much time to enjoy the scenery. It was off and on so we headed next to Craters Of The Moon, a nearby thermal park. It was cheap entry and is a recently created (naturally) geothermal area with plenty of volcanic vents so the area is covered with steam and that sulphuric aroma. Walking around was fun, but the rain restricted our views at points and the steam means that it's not exactly a place for getting classic pictures. It's called Craters Of The Moon as a lot of the mud pools resemble the moon's surface as the vents bubble, although this was only noticeable in a couple of places due to the heavy rainfall of the previous days.
Next stop was Wairakei Terraces, which has steam pools used for power generation and also
another thermal area. We didn't actually go into this one, although we browsed the shop and had a bite to eat in the cafe. The final stop of the morning was at Aratiatia Dam which opens 3 times a day. A bunch of obnoxious school children trip ended up on the bridge with us as the dam opened although it was pretty impressive. Then we had our tasty sushi lunch; crab has never tasted so nice.
A trip into town and a wander of the shops was next as well as a quick internet stop before heading back to have dinner and spent the night in the same campsite again.
The Drop
The initial plan was to do the bungy jump the day before, but Emma had a bad chest infection and was feeling very sick the day before, so we ended up getting up early to do the jump/fall today. She felt a lot better and was raring to go. When we got there, we opted to do the jump together in tandem, which would be a bit different. After we had our harnesses tied and stood at the edge, the guy told us just to
stand side by side and make sure we held onto each other when we jumped. Standing on the edge and looking down towards the Taupo river below was daunting; unlike skydiving this felt a bit more "real" as the free fall was straight to the earth instead of up in the clouds. As we tipped forward, the adrenaline rush hit and down we went at high speed towards the water. After bouncing a few times, we got picked up by the boat. There was an option to dip your head into the water on the initial bungy down or even to be completely submerged, but we opted against it as there was no sense with Emma's chest infection. It was again pouring rain today, but this wasn't noticed when we did the fall (although the pictures aren't as clear). A great experience, but I wanted to do it again! Money won the argument, although it'd be nice to do again at some point..
On the grand scale of the three main "extreme" activities we did, skydiving was easily the best. It combined the freefall of the bungy and the flying of the hang gliding into one package and lasted
a lot longer, although it is reflected in the price obviously. We'd heartily recommend all three to anyone willing to give them a shot though.
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