We've taken our time meandering up from Wellington to Lake Taupo over the last few days. Wellington itself is a small city and we could have spent more time there but wanted to get to the geothermally active region of New Zealand - been reading too many brochures - On the way we passed a place called Bulls - a small town, but one with a sense of humour. All of the advertising slogan made some reference to the name, my favourite was "Bulls Dairy - Milk like no udder".
At the south end of Lake Tupo we spotted small Maori run thermal pool site and stopped for a look - our first glimpse of "ploppers" where the mud boils and steam erupts from the ground - absolutely fascinating - we both have a bit of a bent for geography and we spent ages just wandering round. The water temperature in this pool is about 70 degrees.
Hope to find bigger more dramatic sites over the next couple of days.
We ended up being flash-packers and stopped at a very nice motel in Taupo itself - the bedroom came complete with a double spa - luxury.
Found more thermal sites - this area is called the craters of the moon - not as dramatic for us as the first site, as you couldn't get close but still impressive.
Then off to Huka falls - trully awsome power of water in the confines of a 300 yards long gorge - the flow will fill five olympic swimming pools per minute!
Next was the Aratiatia falls - these are controlled by a dam, somewhat bizarrely they open the dam 4 times day in summer rather than a continual flow resulting in a steep gorge that goes from empty to a torrent in a matter of minutes and then 20 minutes later the flow is stopped and the gorge goes back to a trickle.
At the south end of Lake Tupo we spotted small Maori run thermal pool site and stopped for a look - our first glimpse of "ploppers" where the mud boils and steam erupts from the ground - absolutely fascinating - we both have a bit of a bent for geography and we spent ages just wandering round. The water temperature in this pool is about 70 degrees.
Hope to find bigger more dramatic sites over the next couple of days.
We ended up being flash-packers and stopped at a very nice motel in Taupo itself - the bedroom came complete with a double spa - luxury.
Found more thermal sites - this area is called the craters of the moon - not as dramatic for us as the first site, as you couldn't get close but still impressive.
Then off to Huka falls - trully awsome power of water in the confines of a 300 yards long gorge - the flow will fill five olympic swimming pools per minute!
Next was the Aratiatia falls - these are controlled by a dam, somewhat bizarrely they open the dam 4 times day in summer rather than a continual flow resulting in a steep gorge that goes from empty to a torrent in a matter of minutes and then 20 minutes later the flow is stopped and the gorge goes back to a trickle.
Can only assume They do this for the tourists. It drew a big crowd. The water rose about 15ft.
Off to Rotorua tomorrow to see some friends of ours, originally from Cumbria now living in NZ, Liz and John Dentice.
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