Day 4 - Taupo/National Park

Oct 30, 2008
Today we would be driving the 175 km from Rotorua to the National Park via Lake Taupo. Lake Taupo fills out a volcanic crater that has been erupting for the last 27000 years. The largest eruption was about 5000 years and 1 month ago, the eruption was so massive that the ash and smoke from this eruption was seen as far away as China and Rome.

Huka Falls
Our first stop for the day was Huka falls about 10 km before Taupo. The waikato river flows serenly all the while except at this spot it encounters granite rocks, which the river has not been able to dislodge yet, so the river is crowded into a canyon about 15m wide (from about 100m as original width). The height of the water in the canyon is about 5m, and all of this water over 200000 litres per sec gushes through this 15 m wide canyon. You can walk across the canyon over the bridge and come along side the falls.



The lonely planet guide had recommendations for places to eat, and we picked one such place for lunch, remember all the sheep from yesterday. We looked around for about 30 mins, and the map on the guide suggested that we were standing right in front of the restaurant but there wasnt one. We finally ate at a Thai place. One lamb meal opportunity wasted!!!

Craters of the moon
After lunch we drove back on SH1 towards Huka Falls, this time to see the craters of the moon. This one is not as spectacular as the Waiotapu or Waimangu. We used this place as training for Milford Track. The plume of steam from the vent in this photo sounds like an aeroplane jet engine.


The drive to National Park
We had another 100 km to cover before we could get to national park which would be our base to tramp the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. We stopped at a few places around Lake Taupo because the scenery was so beautiful. It was a sunny and beautiful day, most times it seemed like the days when we were on the road, the days were clear, bright and sunny. There was this scenic lookout before you enter Taupo, which was stunnigly beautiful. The photos from my camera do not tell even a small part of that story. It was spectacular!!! This lookout also provided us our first view of Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings triology, the snow capped mountain in the first photo below. We were going to climb it the next day.

(First look of the volcanoes of Tongariro National Park)