NZ - Day 5 - Part 2

Tuesday, 28 January 2020

When we arrived back at the house at 12:15 the kids were finishing off lunch. I had expected them to still be in pyjamas so I was impressed with their activity and general vertical-ness.

Shortly afterwards we left for our first tourist activity which was a 90 minute cruise around the lake taking in some Maori rock carvings and a fishing 'demonstration'. The cruise was only 1/2 full so we had plenty of room to spread out and relax on the boat which was great for those of us with tired legs!

The carvings were cool. They would have been more cool if they had been more historic, and less 'done-in-the-70s-with-scaffolding' but hey, who are we to judge! 

After the carvings we moved on to the 'fishing demonstration' part of the tour. Taupo is renown for trout fishing but NZ has outlawed all commercial trout fishing - so only licenced people can catch fish. The licenced person on the boat dropped two lines in and a few minutes later (and despite the fact that Jon and I normally jinx any sort of fishing activity), both lines had fish on them!  One of the other guests pulled in one of lines, and I pulled in the other, revealing a large angry rainbow trout who I elected to return back to the lake once we'd taken the photo. The other fish wasn't quite so lucky and will be served up to tomorrow's guests on the cruise.

Back on shore (note it was pretty warm in Taupo today, unlike where we were in the morning), we drove to the Spa Thermal Park and found a great spot to go for a swim in the Waikato River where a thermal creek was entering the river, bringing with it delightfully hot water! It was pretty awesome.

After a while I foolishly half suggested, half insisted that we walk the 3km trail down the river to check out the Huka falls which claims to be one of the most visited natural attractions in New Zealand.  I dare say most of the visitors are driving to the adjacent car park, and not schlepping 6ks up and down the dusty riverside trail with desperately tired legs!

The falls were nice enough - not what I expected - they were more horizontal than vertical, but still nothing you'd want to ride in a barrel.

We walked back down to the swimming spot and rewarded ourselves with another swim. By this time Jon and I had walked at least 27ks, so the warm water was really lovely.

Then it was home via the supermarket for BBQ stuff. Dinner was delicous and ample -the perfect end to the day.

We don't have quite such firm plans for tomorrow but I can guarantee that nothing we do will involve getting up at 4.30am!