I leaped out of bed at 06:30 and had a quick shower before we took to the streets of Napier at 07:30. We spent an hour wandering around photographing the beautiful art deco buildings.
After a huge breakfast for a reasonable price, where I squeezed four and a half cups of tea from my small teapot, we revisited the port of Napier and the centennial gardens. We left Napier by 10:30 taking the thermal explorer highway towards Taupo where we had planned to stay the night.
We stopped at Esk Valley winery at which point I was pleased to be passenger for the day and sampled a rose and two reds, on of which was a reserve. We had a lovely view of the vineyards and beyond to Hawkes Bay. We decided to buy a couple of bottles, I ensured that Ian was steered away from the reserve which I wasn't keen on and gave me the urge to cough and which also cost three times as much as the others!
We arrived in Taupo at 12:30 and I began my quest in the search for accommodation. Taupo is a very active city and all of the hostels could only offer me dormitory accommodation. I extended my search to Turangi which is at the southern point of Lake Taupo. On my second attempt I secured us a room for NZD 40 and satisfied with the outcome we headed off out of Taupo to the north in search of Craters of the Moon.
Well, what an experience! Immediately we found ourselves in a geothermal field where there were many plumes of steam rising from the ground. Signs were erected everywhere advising you to stay to the walkways for fear of burning your feet or lower legs if you wandered too close to the craters, or if the unstable ground were to give way.
The stench from the sulphur steam plumes was quite overpowering. The colours in the rocks and earth were wonderful and rich. One of the craters had fantastic pools of mud boiling at its base, bubbling up against the side of the crater, making a wonderful noise and looking like bubbling molten chocolate. It was terrific. Its excellent to watch geology in the making and knowing that there are large volumes of magma moving beneath the surface. By the time we got back to the car it was 15:00! We scoffed the giant muffins we had bought at the breakfast cafe and moved on to Huka Falls, oblivious as to what they had to offer. It transpired that the hydropower generated from the Waikato River, on which the Huka Falls are situated, powers sixty five per cent of the North Islands electricity supply which is rather impressive! Standing over the falls was rather scary as there was a huge volume of water being forced through the narrow channel and watching it rushing down reminded me of the white water rafting on the Zambezi River in Victoria Falls!
We took a walk to a hot spring stream at Spa Park which was 3 kilometres upstream by taking an up and down track along the riverside. There were allegedly mud pools along the way but we completely failed to locate them. We reached our destination in 40 minutes and it was well worth the walk for which I set quite a pace. There were a handful of people sitting in the stream at an outlet which resembled a hot tub. It was an unusual sight. We dipped our toes in and found the water to be incredibly hot, hotter than bath water, and if you tried hard enough and waded in to the riverbed you could find some slightly cooler patches that were comfortably warm. It was remarkable!
Back in the car we made our journey to Turangi round the eastern shore of the lake which gave us some stunning vistas of the lake and what we think must be snow-capped Mount Ngauruhoe next to Mount Tongariro.
We travelled 242 kilometres from Napier to Turangi.
Copyright 2002 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.