The bit in the middle
Trip Start
May 31, 2007
1
16
23
Trip End
Sep 13, 2007
Taupo, New Zealand
Friday, August 24, 2007
Bay of Plenty
We time in Tauranga, not really a tourist hot spot but the up and coming main city of the Bay of Islands (and centre of NZ's kiwi growing region - yes we have eaten tons of them!) Nearly ever New Zealanders we met in this region gave us the hard sell on the benefits of moving here - Informing us about the schools and job opportunities and the all year round temperate climate and attractive beaches. Probably not the right place for us!
Central Plateau has the monopoly on thermal activity, Moutainous and volcanic landscape (Mt Tongariro and Mt Ruapehu otherwise known to Lord of the Ring Fans - as Mount Doom) as well as lush forest, not forgetting the enormous Lake Taupo
MUD
. Words fail when trying to described the beauty of the surrounding huge hills and expanse of shimmering water.First stop inland was smelly Rotorua otherwise known as 'Sulphur City', with its volcanic landscape, more thermal springs, bubbling mud pools and impressive geysers and strong Maori history it is a 'must do' tourists stop. The 'eggy smell creeps up on you and then just hangs around, not strong enough to taint your food but just there!
Camped next to the most popular thermal reserve, Te Whakarewarewa (pronounced 'fa-ka-re-wa-rewa) but if you are in a hurry you can call it 'Whaka' but instead of going to here we drove a further 27km to Wai-o-Tapu (meaning 'scared waters') with a guaranted spouting water show from the Lady Know Geyser (helped by a little soap!). Although impressive when the soap reacted - it would have been more impressive not to have seen the guy pouring soap (although organic) into it! We were much more impressed by the bubbling mud pools and the steaming landscape and multi coloured terraces. We enjoyed our visit to Wai-o-Tapu, walking around the large Champagne pool (no Sally, Jo, Jo and Anita we can't drink it!).
Full of the smell of eggs we headed for the neighbouring, slightly less smelly region of Lake Taupo on the journey there the Kea camper's electronic disappeared - we had no idea how fast we were travelling, how much petrol, water temperature all the other vital info was gone
mud
. After using the same techinic we have mastered to fix a problem on the computer (turn it off and on again) we continued our journey but the problem keep coming back - we made it to our camp site and much to the childrens delight we were met with the largest, and first, bouncing pillow we had ever seen (basically it is a bouncy castle in the ground).Lake Taupo's main attractions are water based, with over 45 different rivers flowing into this one gigantic Lake and only one rushing out! It was not surprising that we could choose from fishing, boating, kayaking and much much more.
We really enjoyed this region, Tabitha and John went on a tranquil horse trek through the forest with some of the steepest riding Jon had ever experienced, Tabitha was delighted to be able to canter for the first time. Oli and I visited a bee farm and ate honey ice cream, we all enjoyed the volcanic centre too. Tabi and I went on a fab rapid jet boat with 360 degree spins along raging waters, whilst hero Jon stayed on land and entertained Oli.
The camper van eletronics finally gave up for good and Kea insisted on sending down a new van which arrived late one evening in the pouring rain
Glorious mud
! Jon entertained the children in the camps site pools while I packed and unpacked which took forever!Goodbye Ants
Another benefit of changing campers was the Ant's remained on the broken bus and headed back to Auckland - still they had a good time considering they were stow aways in the first place!
The weather has been fairly kind to us - although we have more and more rain - especially the evening we changed campers, but all things considered it is mid winter here in NZ and we have been enjoying good weather.
