Another great breakfast at the b&b and we were out the door before 9AM. Before heading towards our next destination which was Taupo we tried to swing into the local library to see if there was free WiFi, but we quickly found there was not. We also found out that the gas stations can’t use overseas credit cards at the pump, we have to go pay inside everytime, it took a potential temper tantrum from Mike before we figured thae one out.
The drive to Taupo is about an hour or so, but on the way we stopped at Orokei Korako a thermal reserve that Collin, the owner of the 1st bed and breakfast we stayed at, recommended to us as the place to go if we wanted to see thermal stuff as a tourist but not be bunched in w/ other tourists, because it was
out of the way not many people went there. I have to say it was pretty cool, several geysers and bubbling mud, boiling water, and steam rising from the ground all around you. The walk was about an hour and a half all through this terrain, so it wasn’t a small area. I half expected Chaka or a Sleestak to run by us, it seemed really prehistoric (Land of the Lost reference there, sorry for those that just don’t get it). The running water all around us was bathwater warm at the beginning and too hot to touch at the top, I can only imagine what the actual pools were like, I’m guessing since they were bubbling that they were boiling. Takes a college education to figure that stuff out. There weren’t too many other people there, evidently the tour buses don’t come here because you have to take a boat across a lake to get to the thermal grounds and the boat
wasn’t large enough to fit a bus load of people. Evidently this is one of the best thermal spots in the whole world, it was definitely like nothing I’d ever seen.
After that 2 hour break we finished our drive into Taupo, which is situated right on a very large lake, I’m guessing it’s larger than Tahoe. Since we didn’t have reservations anywhere here our 1st agenda item was to find a place to sleep tonight, even though it was only about 1:00. We didn’t want to waste too much time doing this, so we quickly found a hotel and checked in, the place is kind of a dump, but the bed was clean, that’s all I really need.
We had the whole afternoon to kill, so we drove about 4 miles outside of town to the “Craters of the Moon”, which was basically more thermal ground. It wasn’t as impressive as what we did earlier, but it was still pretty cool. There wasn’t as much vegetation around this place, so it
really did look like the moon. There were also large craters here, which is where the name came from. That was about a 45 minute walk for us, so a bit more exercise which is all good. After that we drove right across the street to some tourist trap that was a honey store, they had all kinds of honey they make onsite from literally millions of bees. I have to admit it was pretty cool. We even tried wine made of honey, which is what mead is, I never knew this.
We made our way back into town and decided to search for an internet connection so we could email our folks to let them know we arrived here a few days ago safely and to see about booking our accommodations in the next couple of destinations we had in mind. We went to the café we had lunch in and paid for the wireless connection which was enough to everything we needed to do done. After that we found a nice Irish pub to relax and have a couple of beers, and low and behold I was able to pick up a free wifi connection here, so we did more planning and hotel booking.
Our final activity of the day was dinner, we walked about 100 ft from our hotel door to a pub that was also a restaurant.. the Crooked Door Inn. We had a massive seafood compilation that had three full plates of foot stacked on top of each other when it was served on a tiered tray. Scallops, prawns, salmon, mussles, oysters, and other stuff was all included. So now we’re stuffed and ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a big hike before we drive out to Hawk’s Bay.
The drive to Taupo is about an hour or so, but on the way we stopped at Orokei Korako a thermal reserve that Collin, the owner of the 1st bed and breakfast we stayed at, recommended to us as the place to go if we wanted to see thermal stuff as a tourist but not be bunched in w/ other tourists, because it was
out of the way not many people went there. I have to say it was pretty cool, several geysers and bubbling mud, boiling water, and steam rising from the ground all around you. The walk was about an hour and a half all through this terrain, so it wasn’t a small area. I half expected Chaka or a Sleestak to run by us, it seemed really prehistoric (Land of the Lost reference there, sorry for those that just don’t get it). The running water all around us was bathwater warm at the beginning and too hot to touch at the top, I can only imagine what the actual pools were like, I’m guessing since they were bubbling that they were boiling. Takes a college education to figure that stuff out. There weren’t too many other people there, evidently the tour buses don’t come here because you have to take a boat across a lake to get to the thermal grounds and the boat
wasn’t large enough to fit a bus load of people. Evidently this is one of the best thermal spots in the whole world, it was definitely like nothing I’d ever seen.After that 2 hour break we finished our drive into Taupo, which is situated right on a very large lake, I’m guessing it’s larger than Tahoe. Since we didn’t have reservations anywhere here our 1st agenda item was to find a place to sleep tonight, even though it was only about 1:00. We didn’t want to waste too much time doing this, so we quickly found a hotel and checked in, the place is kind of a dump, but the bed was clean, that’s all I really need.
We had the whole afternoon to kill, so we drove about 4 miles outside of town to the “Craters of the Moon”, which was basically more thermal ground. It wasn’t as impressive as what we did earlier, but it was still pretty cool. There wasn’t as much vegetation around this place, so it
really did look like the moon. There were also large craters here, which is where the name came from. That was about a 45 minute walk for us, so a bit more exercise which is all good. After that we drove right across the street to some tourist trap that was a honey store, they had all kinds of honey they make onsite from literally millions of bees. I have to admit it was pretty cool. We even tried wine made of honey, which is what mead is, I never knew this.We made our way back into town and decided to search for an internet connection so we could email our folks to let them know we arrived here a few days ago safely and to see about booking our accommodations in the next couple of destinations we had in mind. We went to the café we had lunch in and paid for the wireless connection which was enough to everything we needed to do done. After that we found a nice Irish pub to relax and have a couple of beers, and low and behold I was able to pick up a free wifi connection here, so we did more planning and hotel booking.
Our final activity of the day was dinner, we walked about 100 ft from our hotel door to a pub that was also a restaurant.. the Crooked Door Inn. We had a massive seafood compilation that had three full plates of foot stacked on top of each other when it was served on a tiered tray. Scallops, prawns, salmon, mussles, oysters, and other stuff was all included. So now we’re stuffed and ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a big hike before we drive out to Hawk’s Bay.
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