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Published: December 26th 2006
On the Right Track
Wherever could this road lead?In the course of cooking dinner in the hostel kitchen last night, I got chatting to a couple of English girls who were telling me all about their experience of having thrown themselves out of a plane earlier in the day. I'm absolutely fascinated by the thought that anyone would willingly do such a daft thing but with Taupo seeming to be the world's skydiving capital, there's a lot of madness about around here.
Anyhow, this morning Glynn and I bumped into the girls again at breakfast and when we learned that they didn't have any plans for the day, we offered to take them along with us for our latest grand adventure - the hot water river at Kerosene Creek. By midday we were all packed and ready to go with Jenny from Cardiff and Adele from Wolverhampton keeping an eye on Jish in the back seat.
It was glorious weather today with bright sunshine and barely a cloud in the sky. The temperature had risen significantly too and it was easily the best weather we've had in weeks. Now Kerosene Creek is something of a local secret. We heard about it from the couple we met in
Follow that River
Adele, Jenny and Glynn on the way to Kerosene Creek. the hot pools we went to at the weekend but no-one we asked in Taupo seemed to know where it is. We managed eventually to get directions from an English couple in a campervan that we met at the famr yesterday would you believe?! It turned out to be a bit of a drive along route 5 towards Rotorua, past the turn-off for the Waitopu thermal park. We took the next right, signposed Old Waitopu Road although there was a nice new street sign labelled Kerosene Creek Road which kind of gave the game away! About 5 minutes along the road we spied a small makeshift carpark with about 3 or 4 cars parked in it and guessed it had to be the spot.
It was a short walk to the river with waters so hot, we could see the steam rising as it flowed downstream. After passing a small half-metre high waterfall, we came to the star prize - a big bathing pool with a 2 metre waterfall leading into it. It looked fantastic and before long all 4 of us were spalshing around in the lovely hot waters. The river pool was quite a bit deeper than
Kerosene Creek
Glynn knows how to make any photo look so sophosticated,doesn't he? the hot pool we first experienced with Lina and it was possible to swim around a little. It was fun trying to stand under the waterfall although it was a bit tricky. The water not only torrented down with such force that it pushed you away every time you tried to get close but there are tiny bits of gravel line the riverbed that allow your feet to sink through to where hotter stones are waiting to scorch your soles - ouch! It was probably a good thing we couldn't get under the waterfall though as we had heard you can catch meningitis if you put your head under the water - eek!
We all dipped in and out of the water for a good few hours, enjoying both the heat of the thermal river as well as the gorgeous sunshine overhead. Adele and Jenny seemed to really enjoy themselves and it felt nice that Glynn and I could pass on something good to some fellow travellers, just as Lina had done for us in Rotorua.
After the delights of Kerosene Creek, we took Adele and Jenny to see the dam opening which they enjoyed just as much
Three in a River Bed
Glynn,Adele and Jenny having way too much fun. as we did yesterday and then on the way back to Taupo we stopped off at the mini farm so they could meet the alpacas and our newest animal friend, Weetbix the fluffy sheep! We ambled around the grounds for a bit, closely followed by the sheep of course, and enjoyed another tasty milkshake before making our way back to base via a quick trip to Pack'n'Save for some well-earned liquid refreshment. We spent the remainder of the evening drinking the better part of 24 beers between us and having a thoroughly excellent time!
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