New Zealand - Day 11

November 13, 2010

Today was our second longest day of driving. Thankfully from here on out our time in the car each day should be much shorter. We gladly left Wellington behind and drove North into the central part of the North Island. On the way we stopped at an Icebreaker outlet so Derick could look for a new jacket. It's really awesome stuff, actually. They take real merino wool from sheep in New Zealand and weave it into super fine knitwear that feels as soft as cotton but it's as warm as wool. It's very high quality material, and very tempting. But even with the sale prices we couldn't really afford anything.

The coolest part of the drive was passing by Mt. Ruapehu and its sister peak. These active volcanoes are a part of the crazy geothermal features of the island and served as the backdrop for the dark land of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. The mountains were big, snow-capped and very craggy. Definitely an epic landscape worth taking pictures of.

Finally, we arrived in Lake Taupo (apparently pronounced toe-paw but everyone there pronounces it taw-poe.) We checked into the Kinloch Pioneer Cabin in the hills outside of town. It's a beautiful little cabin with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and living area over-looking the green expanse on the North East end of Lake Taupo.

Our hostess greeted us when we arrived and invited us into her beautiful, country house to chat about the area. She was very friendly and had great advice about what to do in the area. She also told us a little bit about the attractions we were planning to see over the next couple of days. She was a great resource! That's one of the things we loved about this trip - talking to the locals and getting their opinion on what's the best to see and do and eat. Fabulous!

Upon her recommendation we decided to skip the Craters of the Moon geothermal field that we were originally going to see that afternoon. She said most people come back feeling pretty disappointed. So instead we drove out to see Huka Falls - a powerful, crystal blue waterfall. It was pretty impressive.

If we'd been brave enough we could have taken a jet boat right up to the falls. It looked dangerous but exhilerating as they zoomed really fast past the rocks and spun around a few times in the surf near the base of the falls. It's probably really fun but I'm fairly certain I'd have gotten motion sick.

A ways up the road we stumbled upon this cute little shop called The Honey Hive. They had real bees inside the shop that you could see as they made their honey. They also sold all kinds of honey products - mead, beer, soaps and lotions, even honey ice cream - delicious!

After that we drove into town to pick up a few essentials at the grocery store, check our email at an internet cafe, and then we ate dinner at the Lotus Thai Restaurant our hostess recommended. It was really nice inside and the service and food were great. We enjoyed taking a break from the typical Kiwi fare of steak, lamb and seafood. While we were there Derick and Lisa shared some more stories about their honeymoon in Thailand.

After dinner we were all pretty tired so we went back to the cabin and did a puzzle while watching tv. I think Derick was a little disappointed in our lack of desire to go out and explore the local night life in most cities, but since our days were packed it felt pretty nice to relax at night. It was important that we didn't completely wear ourselves out on this trip. A hard feat but I think we managed to balance pretty well.