Around Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo is New Zealand’s largest lake and lies in the center of the North Island, near Rotorua. It is 606 sq km in area (that’s pretty dang big!) and the hole where the lake is was formed by a huge volcanic explosion. The main activities in the area include bungy jumping, skydiving, hiking, and trout fishing — in fact, it is supposed to be the trout fishing capital of the world (funny that the trout are descended from a single stock of eggs brought over from the Russian River in California a century ago). And yes, we did go fishing – fly fishing, in fact – but, unfortunately, there is no story about the one that got away...

At the south end of the lake lies Tongariro National Park, the three volcanic peaks visible in the distance. You movie geeks may feel you’ve seen these peaks before, as Tongariro played the role of ‘Mordor’ in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The peak on the right is Mt. Tongariro – we did a one day hike over this peak (more to come on that...).


The Waikato River flows east from Lake Taupo to the Pacific Ocean and is NZ’s longest river.


Along its’ route is the spectacular Huka Falls, more a very large rapid than a tall waterfall, but you really have to see it. It is a huge body of water being squeezed through a very small opening in the rock, and the amount of power it generates is very impressive. To give you an idea of how big this torrent is, there are people standing to the top left of the falls.


Along a short hike we took to get to the falls, were so many of these beautiful mushrooms – Juli, this one’s for you...