We seem to have developed a lucky knack of choosing which bit of driving to do. After saying farewell to the lovely people at Fiesta Court in Wanganui, Nicky drove the first 70 miles or so that was mostly on windy, hilly roads, so better for her to be driving than as a passenger. We made our way to Tongariro National Park where we found the visitor centre and decided to do the two-hour Taranaki Falls walk and what a great choice it turned out to be. With a good variety of terrain and different vistas it was our favourite walk of the trip so far, at one point we could see for many tens of miles to the far horizon, at another we walked next to a boulder strewn river (quite unlike Horsham's Riverside Walk!) and elsewhere we were on the edge of a lava flow. The highlight was the Falls themselves, a great waterfall that tumbled into a churning pool below.
After Tongariro we continued on to Taupo. En route there was a scenic lookout we decided to stop at and we were rewarded with a gob-smackingly awesome view of the enormous Lake Taupo, it was a lot to take in, not surprising I suppose as it's the biggest lake in the whole of NZ.
We found our home for the next three nights, the Adelphi Motel, which was very clean, spacious and close to the town. We got in touch with Erin (Emma's university friend who's out here for a year or more) and we spent a lovely evening chatting and generally catching up.
Thurs 3 March
Erin met us at the motel and very kindly gave us a mini tour of Taupo and took us to a lovely place called Huka Honey Hive where they sell a huge range of bikes. Oh sorry, that was wishful thinking, I meant honey! Anyway, it was so great to see and hear just how much Erin's loving life out here, you could see it in the way she talked about the place, hats off to her.
The afternoon brought some unexpected inspiration. One of the great things about any holiday is the people you meet along the way and I don't think when we went to do some laundry we expected it to be particularly eventful. When we were there we got chatting to a friendly Canadian lady called Maureen, who's here to compete in this weekend's international Ironman competition that will be her seventh. That alone is impressive enough isn't it, but she told us she's 67 years old! Oh my word! So next time I think I'm too tired for a ride or something and am tempted to waste time doing nothing, I'll think of and be inspired by Maureen. We're so thankful for the people we've met. We finished the afternoon with a lakeside walk on what had turned into as hot a day as we've had so far. We heard yesterday that there had been a snow/sleet storm in the south east UK with low temperatures - we'll try not to trouble ourselves with that:-)
Fri 4 March
We decided to hire bikes for the second time to ride up to Huka Falls and then a dam beyond. Contrary to the shop staff's description, the route was very up and down with numerous tight bends on tricky, twisting and turning narrow single track. It therefore came as a relief to reach the falls, the views of which were great. We pressed on to Aratiatia Dam and were glad to have the company of waves of butterflies tickling the air around us, this was another hot (30 degrees) day so anything was good! It was also lovely hearing the different, tropical sounding bird song as we rode along. We made it to the dam in time to witness its two-hourly opening, whereupon water came rushing down the river, quite a sight. We struggled our way back to the shop - I had come off by this time with scratches and blood on my legs and we were hot and tired too after about six hours. After a short rest (Nicky doesn't let me sit down for too long) we drove up to Craters of the Moon, where an hour-long walk took us past lots of steam vents and some mud pools, it was a really interesting place.
To round off our stay in Taupo, Erin's host family Andrew and Arial had very generously invited us round for a BBQ. We spent a really enjoyable evening meeting their three lovely children, chatting about all sorts of things and tucking in to some good food, they certainly made us feel very welcome. We hope to invite them round to ours if they're ever in the UK.
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