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Published: September 2nd 2013
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After leaving Hobbiton and the town of Matamata, we had a drive of just over an hour to get to Taupo, where we were able to check in straight away into our room at the Tiki Lodge Backpackers. The room was basic but was pretty spacious, clean and had a nice big ensuite – a little nicer than some of the backpackers that we had stayed at in Australia, and the last backpackers we would be staying at for the rest of our trip! One we had dropped off our stuff and had a look around the hostel, we made a trip to the nearest supermarket to stock up on some food for the next three nights that we were spending there, then cooked and ate dinner before spending the night browsing the internet and looking at things to do the next day.
We decided the next morning to have a drive around the lake and up towards Tongariro National Park, on the other side of the lake – home to the filming location of ‘Mount Doom’ from the Lord of the Rings films. We found it a bit strange that we were not able to see the mountains across
the lake as we were sure that they were just there and that we should be able to see them, but there seemed to be quite a bit of fog/low cloud in the sky which was covering them. We decided that we would head around there anyway and see if it cleared up over the course of the day.
Lake Taupo is the biggest lake in New Zealand and it is pretty damn huge! As you stand by the edge of the water it’s quite hard to believe that you’re not on the edge of the ocean, it really is quite vast – it has a surface area of 238 square miles! We had a nice drive along the western side of it, stopping off a couple of times to enjoy the views back to Taupo and also to feed some ducks and a big mean goose that tried to chase us!
It took us about an hour to reach the other side of the lake, where we then followed signs towards Tongariro National Park. We had some good views of Lake Taupo as we climbed higher, but we still couldn’t actually see the mountains even though they
were right above us! We parked up in an area which was apparently not too far from some ski fields, and we definitely felt the drop in temperature compared to down on the ground! I think it was about 7 degrees there whilst the car had shown it was around 14 degrees down by the lake, but it was the coldest temperature that we have felt for over a year and a half! With no doubt that it would only get colder as we got higher - and possibly see some snow and ice on the roads - we headed back down to the lake and then back into town, where we spent the afternoon walking around the town after enjoying some delicious Japanese noodles from a noodle bar by the lake.
The next day we had a drive to the nearby Huka Falls – a set of waterfalls that flow from Lake Taupo. Although these were not as high as the one that we had seen at Whangarei, the volume of water that falls over them is much greater, and it’s quite incredible to watch – the pictures don’t really show this though. 220,000 litres of water per
second flow over the falls – to put it in perspective, that is enough to fill five Olympic –sized swimming pools every minute.
Once we had pulled ourselves away from the hypnotising effects of the waterfall, we made our way to a place called ‘Craters of the Moon’ – a geothermal site filled with steam vents from the geothermal activity below the surface. Quite a large part of New Zealand has areas like this, and there are still numerous active volcanoes throughout the country. We followed the path around, passing steaming holes in the ground and several large craters. The sulphur smell wasn’t particularly pleasant – anyone that has smelled sulphur before will tell you that it basically smells like rotten eggs, and we got a few facefuls of stinky steam as we went through, although it did feel lovely and warm! In a couple of the craters, we could hear a bubbling sound, and as we looked closer through the steam, we could see that they were actually mud pools, which were so hot that the mud was actually boiling. It was a little scary as you stood there looking around at all the steam around you and
realising what was going on just below you, and there were various warnings around to stick to the path as some areas were quite unstable.
We then headed back to the lake, where we found that the sky was much clearer today, and we could actually see the mountains at Tongariro! We took a few photos across the lake and thought about taking the drive back over before figuring the view probably wouldn’t really be much better from right underneath, and it was quite a long drive to get there and back. We therefore just enjoyed the views from where we were, and also watched a few people trying (and failing) to win $10,000 by getting a hole in one on a small island in the middle of the lake! When we got back to the room later that afternoon, we realised that we could actually see the mountains from our window, which was quite nice! Amazing how much a bit of fog can hide from view!
Our final day in Taupo consisted of a lazy morning, followed by a trip up the river to some hot pools. Again, due to the geothermal activity around, there are various
pools along the river that are heated up from below, meaning that people can take a warm dip, even in the middle of winter. We had planned to visit some hot pools at our next stop in Rotorua (the capital of geothermal activity apparently!), so we just went to have a look at these ones. There were a few people in their swimwear sitting in the pools, and it did look very relaxing, and made us quite look forward to taking a dip in one later that week. The afternoon was then spent back at the lakefront, just enjoying the views and the lovely sunshine that Taupo was having. We also snapped a picture of the random McDonalds plane that they had outside as we passed it on the way back to the hostel.
Our next stop was Rotorua – or ‘Rotovegas’ as many locals like to call it as there is so much to do there. We had quite a lot planned so we had an early night ready to leave the following morning, and ready for a pretty action-packed couple of days!
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