The road to Taupo

Our next day was two of the attractions on Derek's list which would have us in Taupo in plenty of time to relax and catch up on sleep. These two attractions were also new to Mary-Ellen and I, and on a road we had not ventured before, so to avoid missing them, I ended up down a premature road which housed an information centre and jetboat tours of the falls. Not taking the jet boat, this was obviously the wrong way, but we got a better map and carried on. Interestingly, there was also a shrimp farm on this detour where you catch and bbq the shrimp!

Once on the right road, we made our first stop at Huka falls, a brilliant blue rapids that rushes through a narrow path in the bedrock to finally come tumbling down into a large pool before carrying on down the river. Blue green waters of every hue were broken up only be the white turbulence of the rapids as the water rushed into the bedrock, carving out the rock.

We lazily walked over and down alongside the strongest rapids up to the point where the falls actually drops. Lots of photos were taken and we got our car-weary legs prepared for our next venture.

Conveniently located across the road was an area known as the craters of the moon. This volcanic crater filled with smaller craters was once considered similar to that of walking on the moon in terms of its landscape. After years of vegetation growing, it was a little too green to be the moon, but it offered a number of amazing sights. This of course included some more awesome signs!

So we walked in the overcast afternoon sun, between numerous small craters, rising steam, and several very large craters. The tired travelers enjoyed the rather bizarre landscape, amid jokes and goofing off, including some hiding behind ridges when other people were taking pictures (This is the where's waldo blog version)

As I mentioned, unlike the moon, there was definitely life thriving in this otherwise hostile landscape. Ferns, club mosses, and some small shrubs predominated the the entire crater, which was devoid of trees except on the perimeter of the larger crater that makes up the whole area. Even in this temperamental panorama of earth's power, "every shade of green", as Dad kept saying, can be seen as far as our eyes could wander.

The pressure of the steam coming out was at some points tremendous, far more than we had seen before, if you exclude the force of the geyser. This one was practically shooting the steam out horizontally, and would have been deafening had we not been some at least 35 metres away at our closest (which was a terrible angle for videography, so sorry about the distance!).

With everyone being pleasantly surprised that the craters was a unique and very different experience to the other geothermal attractions we had seen, we grabbed lunch and finished venturing into Taupo. We got our first look of the lake, found our temporary home, grabbed supper, and even went for a swim among the black swans. The mountains unfortunately remained shrouded in clouds the entire time, maintaining an air of mystery for our next day's venture!