Taupo

  Taupo, New Zealand
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

For our first day in Taupo it was back to the adrenaline activities with a morning of jet boating on the Rapids Jet.

Jet Boating

This was great fun - lots of 360 turns and jumps out of the water through the rapids.
 
We then headed to Taupo's next tourist hotspot the "Huka Prawn Park"-

Shawn the Prawn

the worlds only geothermally heated freshwater prawn farm.  Having no idea what to expect here we were amused to see a guy dressed up as Shawn the Prawn in the car park.  The prawn farm was set up by an electrician and a diesel engineer.  They decided to see if they could breed Malaysian fresh water prawns using water heated using heat exchanger and water from the geothermal electricity plant up the road.  It seems they can and they do breed plenty but 90% are eaten on site and it's cheaper for the rest of NZ to import them from Malaysia rather than by them at the farm.
 
There is a bizarre array of activities there - we hand fed baby prawns and then went fishing for prawns in the prawn pools.  You are given a length of garden cane with some fine fishing line tied to the end and a small hook, then the bait is small pieces of steak. 

Busy Fishing

You pick a pool and catch your prawns - any you catch can be cooked for free any style you like in their restaurant. After about quarter of an hour I had had a few nibbles but only managed to catch a crate and Maud hadn't caught anything either.  After about an hour our final haul amounted to one prawn so we donated that to a couple who had already caught 4 and headed off to try "Killer Prawn Golf".  This was a driving range out over some other prawn pools with prizes if you hit the targets at 50, 75, 100 & 150m.  However all the targets were at funny angles so after 40 balls we hadn't won anything there either - the whole place was very amusing though !
 
On the way back to Taupo we went to see the Huka Falls which were more like a big rapid than a waterfall so we took a couple of snaps and headed back into town and had a look around the shops. 
 
The next morning we went to "Craters of the Moon" which is another geothermal area just outside Taupo.   It appeared in the 1950s after the power station was created.  Underground water levels fell and pressure shifted so big craters formed with new steam vents and bubbling mud.  It doesn't really look like the moon - more like a bushy field with steam vents.  

Craters of the Moon

You did have to wear proper shoes though as people had recently been splattered with hot mud !
 
We completed the 45 minute walk around the site taking in the view point at the top and then headed off to Turangi.