Three hour tour: Aratiatia Dam and Huka

Cue Gilligan's Island theme song! What started off as a short stroll became a near record-breaking three hour tour (over 25k steps on Davy's fitbit) as we decided to make the walk from Aratiatia to Huka to see the falls.

But first, the dam itself - Aratiatia is one of these wonderful bits of New Zealand that you can just drive up to and enjoy for free. Three times a day in the low season, four in the high, the dam is opened to let the river run through. And boy does it ever run! From a beautiful, clear, blue-green pool to wild, frothy rapids in seconds, causing the waterline to quickly rise by “a lot” according to Davy. After the closing of the dam, the waterline recedes again, remarkably rapidly, and then the cycle repeats.

The Huka Falls are a much more popular stopping point for tourists, and quite impressive - would probably be more so if we didn't come from the land of the Niagara Falls. Low-key but powerful, compared to the dainty, beautiful falls of Asia - a rush of nature's pure, raw force, barrelling over the rocks, no doubt toward a hydroelectric facility in the near distance. Difficult to capture on film.Read more