Our last 2 exchanges brought us to the center of New Zealand’s north island and its largest lake, Taupo. This lake is in the caldera formed by an eruption that was recorded by 2nd century Romans and Chinese. Luckily, the island wasn’t inhabited yet at that point but when the Maori came they used the hot springs for bathing and cooking, and it is still used for geothermal power today.
May 5-19 - Pukawa
First stop: Pukawa on the western shore. The owners of this vacation home live a couple hours away and come mostly for fishing holidays. Trout fishing seems to be a religion here, and you can’t get trout commercially, only if you or a friend catches it (no problem for us, with all the amazing ocean fish available). Their garage is filled with boats and they allowed us to borrow the smallest of those, the kayaks, to get out on the lake a couple of times.
There were also a handful of short trails you could access right out the front door without driving, like at our place in Kanab. Short drives took us to a lovely river walk, a trail around a tinier lake, and some thermal pools.
The main event for us was Tongariro National Park, home of three more volcanoes including the model for Lord of the Rings’ Mount Doom. On our first weekend, we took an absolutely gorgeous alpine hike with views of all of them, plus some more lakes formed in other craters. It was a long one, and afterward we took a very short walk to the waterfall now known as ‘Golom’s Pool,’ again from the movies. The next morning, we definitely made good use of the thermal pools!
On our second weekend in Pukawa we made another trip into the national park to check out some old Maori fortifications from the New Zealand war called the Te Porere Redoubts. They are considered sacred sites not to be tread on, and you can get a better look from the viewing platforms.
May 19-24 - Kinloch
The lake’s biggest town, also called Taopo, is on the opposite side, about an hour’s drive whether you go north or south. We added a short stay near there as a separate jumping off point for this area.
On our first day, we only had time for a quick walk to the Otumuheke stream, where hot pools flow into the cold river and you can supposedly choose a pool to your temperature preference. They were all too cool for this time of year, except for the water actually coming down the waterfalls.
The next morning was a great treat, a trip out on a sailing cat to see some Maori rock carvings. Unfortunately there was no wind and we didn’t actually sail, but we got a lot of nice views and saw this interesting contemporary (1950s) art.
Afterward we hiked to what is for some reason (convenient highway access?) the country’s most visited natural site, Huka Falls.
Later that week, we had a really nice day to climb the mountain, ‘the lady of the lake’ that you can see from our sailing photo.
We really enjoyed these stops on the ‘Thermal Discovery Highway.’ We get to drive the rest of it on our way to the east coast, to spend our last few weeks here on the beach.