Great Lake Taupo

We took it leisurely on the drive up to Taupo, stopping off at The Mothered Goose in Bulls for some lunch. As we continued on past the three volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park (Tongariro, Ruapehu and the other one - Ngauruhoe) we realised that car two of our convoy didn’t have the address of where we were going, and we had in fact lost them some way back in the traffic. No problem, I thought…we’ll just text them, so we sent a text. We didn’t get a reply, so we tried calling…no signal. Bum. We’d planned to stop at Turangi for coffee and tea, before continuing on. Still no mobile reception, so we ploughed on nonetheless, and later passed them just outside Taupo, in a carpark by the side of the road. We quickly pulled over and exchanged information and checked the directions, before carrying on. We found the road with no problem, but hit a bit of a hitch finding the actual bach. The first place we came to looked like it, but the key wouldn’t work. We drove further down the road to another house, but that wasn’t it either. We then turned back to another place where we’d spotted some people in, and asked them…yes, it was the first house we’d reached. I tried the key again, and with a bit of jiggery, and not a small amount of pokery, we managed to get it to turn in the lock and let us in.

We explored the house, introduced ourselves to the two cats who call this place home (“are you the new staff?” one of them asked), assigned bedrooms, and looked around the grounds. There is a pergola and hammock, and various seating options around the outside, on the deck. We’d stocked up on a few items when we stopped at Bulls, so started cooking up a storm on the barbie, and had steak, salad and chips for dinner. 

The next day, we drove into Taupo for breakfast at The Waterside Inn, who served us up a great breakfast including smoked salmon stacks, hot cakes with bacon and maple syrup, and eggs and bacon. Lisa took the only healthy option of fruit and yoghurt. After brekkie, I left them to explore Taupo town whilst I went to Countdown to collect our groceries that I’d ordered earlier. As I arrived back home, I found that one of the cats had left us a welcome present outside the front door – a dead thrush. I said “you caught it, you eat it” but he didn’t seem to be terribly interested in that idea, so I cleared it away and put the groceries in the fridge and larder. Having met up with the rest of the gang back in Taupo, we drove out firstly to Huka Falls, there to admire the rushing water, before setting out on a longer trek out to Orakei Korako, the geological park outside Taupo, where we went and explored geology.

Last time we came to Orakei Korako was at the end of a particularly dry summer, and the mud pools had sunk to a level so low that we couldn’t see the mud, only hear it bubbling away far below us. This time, it was much fuller, and the mud was bubbling away, looking like extremely thick soup.

On the way back we stopped at L’Arte Café – reputedly one of Lonely Planet’s top 10 dining experiences in New Zealand. But then, they are mostly for backpackers. Still, they could make a decent cup of tea and chocolate brownie. The café is surrounded by a sculpture walkway, all the efforts of the in-house sculptress, Judi Brennan.