From Napier it’s only about 90 minutes
drive to lake Taupo. A quarter of a tank gets us about 100km…just after leaving
Napier I spotted a road sign stating “Taupo 149km”…fearing a giant dent in my
man pride I kept my mouth shut. About 50 kilometers later we passed an
emergency fuel stop, but against a wave of protest I managed to protect my cash
flow and convince my crew members we would make it. If it hadn’t been for a
giant truck creating a much needed slipstream we probably wouldn’t have made
it.
Not only were we biting our nails due to
the fuel crises but I also scored a hat trick of bird kills as a medium sized
bird drop from a tree and glided straight towards Nay’s head only to be
abruptly halted in its path by our windscreen. RIP Bird Number 3.
We wanted to do something water related
given Taupo’s awesome watery stature, and so we booked in for an afternoons
kayaking on the mighty Waikato river. The water is crystal clear due to the
miles of pummus rock (the really light rock that you can scrub your feet with)
that filters out all the impurities in the water.
Our guides were a couple from
Southampton who did a fantastic job having only started the job 3 weeks ago. On
the river route we stopped at the Taupo bungee site to watch some nutjob leap
off and also stopped at a natural hot spring where volcanic water flows down
into the river offering up the opportunity to sit in water where your left leg
is cold due to the river but your right leg heated by the spring water. Weird.
Took a trip down to Hukka Falls which is
just awesome. 20,000 litres a second plough over it and the force of the river
generates 15% of NZ’s power supply.
The volcanic lake at Taupo can create
magical sunsets and so after our massive meaty bbq we headed down for a few
snaps to top off the day.
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