New Zealand : part 2 - Middle-earth

Again I'm sorry for the many pictures, but it's sooooo hard to select!

08/02/2020 From Waikito to our next AirB&B we stop at the Wairere Falls. It's a vertical walk on a very hot day! We only make it to the lookout as we're on a bit of a time schedule 😮 Besides the summit seems to be in the clouds 😏

 

Steep and hot!

As we don't find any restaurant for lunch, we decide to stop at the Blue springs, before arriving at Rotorua. It's so big here, that we have to try and make the most whilst doing the least amount of kilometers 😎

These waters are an amazing pallet of blues and greens. The walk is crowded, but still very very beautiful!

 

Just drying up in the tree!

After a moment of haute cuisine (McDonalds) we visited the only free thing to do at Rotorua: the Sulphur Point Wildlife Sanctuary at lake Rotorua. Already very impressive geothermal area with mudpools, hydrogen sulphide gas and bubbling pools. The hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide gases apparently can make you laugh uncontrollably. However, the smell is so awful we don't stay around to find this out 😁

Lots of beautiful ducks love these warm thermal waters. 

A walk through the playground in these beautiful rose gardens almost gets rid of the smell and we decide to call it a (quite successful) day!

09/02/2020 While the girls continue their schoolwork, we plan the next stops and enjoy a quiet morning. 

We go back towards Rotorua to walk in the Whirinaki Forest Park. It's a long drive, but very much worth it! 

We went on the Waiatiu Falls track and the Te Whaiti-Nui-a-Toi Canyon track. 

It's a magnificent Podocarp forest and Rimu trees. A lot of them are between 500 and 1000 years old!

This forest is also full of stoat traps (a bit like a weasel, but bigger). They were introduced in New Zealand to control the rabbits, but are also killing the original bird species 😖  I guess meddling with nature creates jobs 😓

 

10/02/2020

We're on another day of visits to the geothermal region North of Lake Taupo. First stop is the Aratitata rapids. A few times a day, the dam opens for 15 minutes, to generate hydropower. It's an impressive sight and very loud!

 

Next stop is the Craters of the Moon. It's a visit that requires an entry fee and after paying you feel a little "unwelcome" 😅 It's a very impressive walk along craters, fumaroles and mudpools! And the girls get to learn quite a lot about geothermal activity and energy production as well about the plants that thrive here 😋

Before getting lunch at Taupo, we stop at the Huka falls. 220 000l of water falls down over 11m height per second to generate hydropower. Pretty cool to see how well they use natural resources to create power here.

In the afternoon we enjoyed a boat tour on lake Taupo to visit the Maori Rock carvings.

I think they know this boat 😏

The girls get to drive the boat 😍

Seems to be a bit too much for Anna 😊

11/02/2020 We would really have like to do the Tongariro Alpine crossing (19km), but it was very expensive to get dropped of and picked up on the other side of the mountain. The girls pay full price here in New Zealand...  We did a smaller walk, starting from the Whakapapa village, but not less beautiful! We did the Taranaki falls upper and lower track. 

 

More volcanic activity...

Louise has an off day, the first time since the beginning of the trip. Mum is all to happy to play horse for a while 😌

So happy to be back!

And after only 4 hours hiking they still have a lot of energy left!!! 

Lets hope the good vibe stays as we still have many .... many miles to go!