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| The view of Lake Taupō from Waipahihi Botanical Reserve |
Lake Taupō is the largest lake in Australasia, and unsurprisingly, sits atop a super-volcano that could pop at any second. For my first evening here, I signed up for an evening cruise on an electric sail boat to sail to the other side of the lake to view some Māori carvings. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, people were sipping beers, and the captain Peter was good company, as were my fellow passengers.
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| Splice the mainbrace! |
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| I'm a natural at this. I don't even need to look where we're going |
The Māori carving was impressive and well-preserved, and I couldn't for the life of me work out how they'd managed to do it, until it was pointed out to me that it was only done in 1980. 😃
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| Still, nice bit of carving guys |
My accommodation was a small, but very comfortable, caravan in someone's back garden. The best thing about it was meeting George the Schnauzer, whom I'm still in touch with.
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Nearby was Waipahihi Botanical Reserve, which was very pleasant, despite my complete ignorance of botany. There were hundreds of wee paths you could take to view different types of trees (that all look very similar to me). And the cicadas here are unbelievably noisy.
Taupō also has its own parkrun which was near my accommodation, so I went down for 8am to find quite a lot of the runners wearing tutus to celebrate their birthday. I'd left mine in the house so I had to run without. I was going great guns until about the 4km mark when I twisted my ankle and screamed a very rude word in full earshot of a young girl and her family. Someone learned a new word today. I managed to hobble to the finish, and then hobble to pick up my hire car, and was pleasantly relieved to find it was an automatic, meaning my sore ankle could take a rest. Sadly though, the indicators were on the other side, so every time I wanted to tell other road users I was turning left or right, I put the windscreen wipers on instead.
First up, the Waitomo caves. A bit like in the ATM cave in Belize, you're not allowed to take photos, so you'll have to make do with the far superior pictures I've lifted off the internet. The caves have lots of massive stalactites/mites that have taken millennia to grow. Some of them have been given nicknames such as the Elephant, or bizarrely, Stevie Wonder's hair.
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| And when a stalactite meets a stalagmite and they love each other very much, they form a column |
The main attraction though is the thousands of glowworms having from the ceiling. Their life-cycle is fascinating (once they reach adulthood, they can't eat food and die within 3-4 days, so they need to reproduce quickly). Technically, all the lights we saw from the boat were glowmaggots, but maggots don't have much marketing appeal, so glowworms it is.
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My accommodation was in a strangely-named village called National Park, which was nevertheless very comfortable and cheap, although they lose points for not having a cute dog in residence. Most people staying in National Park are here to do the Tongariro Crossing in Tongariro National Park.
The day of the trek didn't start well. I managed to put all the ingredients for my sandwiches into the freezer rather than the fridge. I also chose to listen to the sat-nav and ignore the road-signs telling me to turn right to go the park. A few miles later, with hedges scraping both sides of the car and a locked gate ahead, I had to turn round and bomb it to the carpark (where I was getting picked up by a bus).
My bus companions were all very charming and friendly to chat to, although when it came to hiking a mountain trail, rather pedestrian for my liking. Indeed, the first kilometre (which was basically the walk to the start of the trek) took nearly twenty minutes because people were stopping to take photos, drink water etc. So I bade them farewell and marched on ahead. There are literally thousands of other walkers on the crossing, so there was no danger of me getting lost or forgotten about.
The uphill part of the trek isn't too difficult (despite being called The Devil's Staircase), and you get marvellous views of Mount Ngāuruhoe (better known as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Ring films). It last erupted in 1977, and there are signs everywhere reminding you it could happen again. They also inform you that pyroclastic flows can reach up to 700km/hr which might be a bit tricky to outrun.
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| NONE SHALL PASS (I've not seen Lord of the Rings btw but it sounds right) |
Near the top lies the South Crater. An interesting spectacle, and very pleasant to walk on given it looks like it's been run over by a steamroller.
Later on, the aptly named Red Crater ...
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| It closely resembles the surface of Mars (not that I've been) |
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| The descent from Red Crater |
The rest of the walk was a pleasant downhill slope with more spectacular views ...
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The Emerald Lakes |
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| Even the closer Oturere Hut couldn't lure me |
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| Views over Lake Rotoaira on the descent |
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