Moving On

After a lazy morning, we packed up, said goodbye to our Kiwitea family, and got on our way.  We had a lovely four days staying on their rural homestead, nice and relaxed indeed.  We took quite a scenic drive north, up through Kimbolton, Apiti, and Rangiwhahia – we had stayed at Rangiwhahia a couple of times in the past.  Not much there at all, except a nice peaceful Domain to park at.  Then on through the papa rock cliffs, over the new to us bridge, with the old historic bridge beside us, into Mangaweka.  It was a slow trip, but it’s always nice to take the slower route when on holiday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papa Cliffs over the Rangitikei River, new bridge and old bridge

Then it was straight up SH1 passing through Waiouru.  It was clear that the school holidays were in full force as the carpark in the Waiouru Army Museum was full to bursting.  Kids were everywhere, climbing over the tanks in front of the museum to their hearts content.  A little further along the Desert Road we got a reasonable photo of Mt Ruapehu.

Mt Ruapehu

And to the right of Ruapehu was Mt Ngauruhoe, which featured as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings films.

Mt Ngauruhoe

Our stop for the night was the NZMCA camp at Turangi.  What a crowd there was, I counted 50 vans on site.  Previously we had shared this large roomy camp with approximately 10 vans, so it seems that plenty of vans are on the road at this time of year.

Overnighting at Turangi

We took another “road less travelled” the following day,100km journey SH32 along the western side of Lake Taupo.  Interesting little roads were branching off down to the lake, and we remarked that next time at Turangi, we really must stay for a few days and do some exploring in this area.  We passed a sign saying “Steaming Cliffs” and there they were, thermal steam coming out of the hills in front of us.

Steaming Cliffs

We were heading for Lake Maraetai, at Mangakino, a freedom camping spot for a change, we don't often stay at these.  The first area we checked out was full of campers and day trippers, no room for our long caravan here.  Before we moved on to another area I stopped to take a photo of this interesting set up.  How about is cute little caravan!

Cute little tear drop caravan

We found another area not to far away with plenty of room for us to get set up.  But…….. on arrival when I was moving Gemma from the car to the caravan we were set upon by the  neighbour’s off lead little dog!  That's one of the reasons we don't do freedom camping, people don't care that their dogs run free into other peoples camp sites.  And the reply when I mentioned that we had a cat and could they please keep their dog under control?  “Oh”, she said, “Our dog is trained not to chase cats, and we cant find the lead”. 

 

Lake Maraetai

Last Day in Rotorua then Heading Home

Our last day in Rotorua didn't happen as planned.  We had driven out to the Buried Village to find it wasn’t open till mid week.  Sad,  as we had enjoyed visiting here 40 years ago on our honeymoon trip, and wanted to see it again.  Such a shame – it tells the story of Mount Tarawera erupting in 1886.  Over four frightening hours, rocks, ash and mud rained down on the Maori village of Te Wairoa, covering the village with two metres of thick volcanic material.  The eruption also destroyed the famous Pink and White Terraces.  Hopefully, we can visit here on a future trip to Rotorua.

Our visit was not be be this time

Our Plan B was to visit a few more lakes in Rotorua.  The Blue Lake and the Green Lake are side by side, separated by a small isthmus, which had a very convenient lookout spot.  The Blue Lake, Tikitapu, is named as the place where the daughter of a chief lost her sacred greenstone neck ornament.  The lake water appears turquoise blue when seen from above due to the reflection of white rhyolite and pumice on the lake bottom.  The Green Lake, Rotokakahi, is named after the shellfish, kakahi, and appears to be emerald green when seen from above, due to its shallow, sandy bottom.  Privately owned by the local Iwi, this lake is sacred, and no swimming, boating or fishing is allowed.

Blue and Green Lakes

There was one more lake further up the road to visit, Lake Tarawera.  You can just make out the flat topped mountain in the background.  That is Mt Tarawera which blew it’s top back in 1886 and caused such devastation.  The lake was calm, and boat rides are available across the lake in the weekends.  We had an interesting chat to a tour guide who specialises in high end tours, he told us he often travels to collect clients from Auckland, travels around for days or weeks as required, staying at posh hotels.  One of his groups included a family group with adult children, the private pilot, plus a butler!

Lake Tarawera, with Mt Tarawera in the background

The next morning we packed up, said goodbye to Ngongotaha and started traveling homewards.  The weather wasn’t the best and we passed steaming ground as we neared Taupo – the rain always makes these vents steam more.

Steaming vents near Taupo

Turangi NZMCA Park was our stop for the night.  A lovely big area with plenty of room for the few vans stopping overnight.  The rain hosed down late afternoon and all through the night.  We enjoyed some fish and chips from the local shop, very nice they were too, and settled down for the evening warmed by our trusty diesel heater.  By morning, the rain had eased, but the wind had picked up, chasing the wind and clouds away.

Turangi NZMCA Park

From here, we stopped at Waiouru to refuel and a coffee, then heading straight on home.  Our Anniversary Trip was over, and we had a wonderful time.  It was an easy trip home, spreading it over a couple of days.  Robin’s knee behaved really well, this was his first big drive since the knee replacement.  The weather was quite mixed, there were a few nice days, but we certainly had our share of wind and rain.  We are not home too long, have another trip planned for next week.

Craters of the Moon

This time, on our stop over in Taupo, we are staying at the National Equestrian Centre for three nights.  There are power sites available at reasonable rates, and vans have been coming and going.  Surrounded with lots of mature trees, which means plenty of birdlife around, much to Gemma’s delight.  How she would love to get outside and catch one!

There is a huge indoor arena so I went to see if I could take a peep inside.  No horses being worked inside today, but I’m sure it would be a very busy place when competitions are taking place.

National Equestrian Centre

The rain hardly stopped the previous day, and it was great to awake to blue skies today, so we decided to make the most of it and do some exploring.  First, a trip back to town (Taupo), taking a road which Robin wanted to travel as he wasn’t sure he had driven on it before.  Top up the diesel, and we were good to go.  Taupo is part of the volcanic area in the North Island of New Zealand that has been active for the past two million years and is still highly active. So today we took a walk through the “Craters of the Moon”, a geothermal wonderland, full of steaming craters and vents, roaring steam fumaroles, and bubbling mud.

Boardwalks and graveled paths made walking easy.  It was interesting to see birds and insects flitting around and the ground cover was mostly flowering manuka bushes.There were information boards dotted around, and for the weary (or elderly) plenty of seating to sit and enjoy the views.  There were plenty of tourists wandering about, and it was great to hear their travel stories, where they had been and where they were heading to next.  They seemed to be interested that Kiwis, like us, also like to visit these attractions.

Walking around the track, we heard the roaring of boiling hot steam escaping, and peeping over the edge of the large crater, we could see small pools of liquid mud, plop plopping away. A reminder of just how active and unstable this area is.

Boiling hot steam roaring out

Boiling mud in these small holes

It had been some years since our last visit, and it was certainly worth a return visit, especially since we qualified for senior discount.   Lunch was next, and we took another return visit, this time to Lava Glass, glassblowing, gallery and café.  No photos were allowed to be taken in the gallery, so many beautiful pieces of glass on show, but well out of our budget.  We enjoyed a nice relaxed lunch, then made our way back to the camp.

Tomorrow we are moving on to meet up with the ICA members for their Christmas Rally at Ohakuri Lake.  This will be a new experience for us, our first time meeting this group, and our first time visiting the lake.

Hamilton - here we come

We woke to find the Taupo Airport NZMCA Park enveloped in mist.  The airport buildings were not too far away and we could hardly make them out at all, so presumably the run way was also rather misty too.  But then while we were eating our breakfast, the sun broke through, and chased the misty conditions away.

Misty morning at Taupo Airport

Lake Taupo looked as pretty as a picture with several craft bobbing about in the lake as we drove past on our way out of town.  No sign of the mountains though, they were hiding under the cloud cover.

Lake Taupo

There were roadside steam warnings as we drove past the Wairaki Geothermal power pipes (read about this here), but today there was hardly any steam to blow across the road and obscure motorist’s views.  The amount of steam escaping does seem to be weather dependent, with the steam becoming more evident in colder temperatures.

Wairaki Geothermal Power Station

You know you are in the country when you spot a herd of cows patiently walking along their cattle race.  It was well past morning milking time, so we presume they were being moved from one paddock to another.  There was a farmer on a quad bike at the end of the long queue of cows, guiding them gently on their way.

We stopped at the Truck Stop at Tokoroa for fuel and saw this huge yellow machine doing the same.  Not sure what it is, but it was certainly a monster.

Fuel stop at Tokoroa

Eventually we arrived at Hamilton and called into the Jukebox Diner for a late lunch.  Then it was off to the Leisureline factory when we are staying the night.  The caravan repairs will be started bright and early on Tuesday morning – we will need to be ready to vacate the caravan by 6.30am, we were told.  No worries, the sooner the job is started, the sooner it will be completed, and we can get on our way again.

Staying outside the Leisureline factory tonight

Powerhouse Road

It was just a one night stop at Taupo this time, we are making our way slowly towards Auckland.  We stopped at the Wairakei BP to use the public dump station, and purchase a nice hot coffee to take with us on our trip.  Close by was the Wairakei Geothermal Power Station, and we could see some of the many pipes and hissing steam beside the road.  When the first generator was commissioned at Wairakei in 1958, it was only the second geothermal plant in the world to begin large-scale commercial operation and the first to exploit a wet (rather than dry steam) geothermal resource. 

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Roadside pipes in the Wairakei Geothermal Power project

Our drive today took us along SH1 and through Tokoroa, Putaruru to Arapuni, turning into Powerhouse Road, for our stop for the night.  With power available, together with toilet facilities, and all for a very reasonable cost, our two vans were soon settled in this peaceful rural setting.

 

Powerhouse Road CAP (Cost applicable site)

And staying as we were on Powerhouse Road, we soon went exploring to find it.  We knew about the power house, but were unaware of the swing bridge – that sounded like fun. 

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Our first glimpse of the power station and the swing (foot) bridge was  from the road bridge, and the public could  go no further.  The Arapuni Power Station is the oldest currently generating, the first government-built, and the largest single hydroelectric power station on the Waikato River.  At 80 years old, continuous improvement and refurbishment of the station's generation equipment ensures Arapuni remains efficient.

Powerhouse and swing bridge

Back in the car we went to find the entrance to the swing bridge – of course we wanted to walk across it.  And there it was – luckily some other visitors showed us the path to reach it.  The bridge was built in 1925 for construction workers to reach the power station site.  And we were pleased to read that motorcycles and horses are not permitted on the bridge.

Robin and Geoff looking down at the river

And one of us

The powerhouse and dam at Arapuni are under protection of the Historic Places Trust, becoming Category I Historic Places. It is one of the few generating power stations in New Zealand to be listed on the register.  During WW11 the Powerhouse was camouflaged to prevent it being bombed by possible Japanese airstrikes, foliage was placed on top, and the building was painted in camouflage colours.  Japan did not invade New Zealand so the powerhouse remained unscathed – but it certainly is an interesting story, and one we knew nothing about.

Story of the dam that disappeared during the war

After all this interesting history, we took a bit of a tiki tour and went to check out a couple of local free parking sites for future reference.  The best of these was Jones Landing on Lake Arapuni, and what a pretty place it was.  Jones Landing is named after Gordon Jones father who had a boat shed there. Locals and tourists can come for the day to enjoy boating, fishing, swimming, and picnics, or freedom camp for a couple of nights.  We may well do that on some future trip.

At Jones Landing

The huge rocky outcrops were most intriguing.  And we learned later that these impressive geological features were formed by ignimbrite blocks which are vertically fissured by cooling stresses.  How about that!  It was a great afternoon exploring an area we didn't know much about.

Interesting cliffs

Wairakei Terraces

A visit to Wairakei Terraces Thermal Pools  promised to “revitalise our minds, bodies, and souls”.  That sounded pretty good, it was time to “take the waters” and see if the pools lived up to their promise.  A little pricey, we felt, but producing our Gold Cards knocked a reasonable number of dollars off the entry price.

We paid our money and received a safety talk, all very necessary these days, including the all important message not to put our heads under the water.  After getting changed we walked down the path to find four pools of varying temperatures, ringed with native trees.  It was such a pretty setting, steam was rising from the water, birds were singing in the trees,and a gaggle of young bikini clad American lassies daintily stepped into the pool. 

Pools at Wairakei Terraces

We soon got chatting to a staff member who was skimming the pool of leaves dropped from the trees overhead and she told us a little of the history.  The terraces between the pools are man made, but the silica build up is completely natural, and are reminiscent (in a much smaller way) of the beautiful Pink and White Terraces of Tarawera which were lost in 1886 after volcanic eruptions.  The silica enriched waters of the pools is drawn from 1.5km underground, piped into cooling pools before cascading over the small terraces.

Enjoying the waters

We never did go into the hottest of the four pools, but moved slowly around the other three.  The American girls departed and we had the complex to ourselves, relaxing in the water, enjoying the scenery and the sunshine.  This is the life!  On getting changed again we read a notice affixed to the changing room wall.  It recommended not showering before getting dressed – rather leaving the minerals on our skin to reap the benefits. Just might make us look ten years younger, perhaps!

Looking around the outside of the complex we could see the geyser erupting boiling water through the fence in mighty spurts.  The power of Mother Nature is immense in these geothermal areas - such a lot of natural force at play here.

 

Boiling water, geyser, and plenty of steam

Right next to Wairakei Terraces was a road leading up to a lookout over the Wairakei Geothermal Power – steam field.  60 wells up to 2000m deep tap into the field producing 1400 tonnes of steam per hour. transmitted to the power station through a series of insulated pipes.

Expansion loops over the road

The view from the lookout was amazing, pipes going every which way, steam puffing here and there, and workmen working in several areas of the pipeline.  We didn’t realize just how extensive the pipeline was.

Panoramic view from the lookout

Views of the steam field

We found a friendly tourist from Korea at the lookout who happily took our photo for us.

To show we were there

As we drove through the gates back at camp, Robin exclaimed that he recognized the van next to us which had arrived while we had been out and about.  And he was right – it was great to catch up with our friends from the Wairarapa Caravan Club, Harry and Lorraine, and Gary and Elva.  It was just in time for 4zees too!

Lorraine, Harry, Elva and Gary