Lazy Sunday morning by blue Lake Taupo

We had an extra hour to kill this morning and decided to check out what the people of Taupo do on a Sunday morning by the lake. Are we ever glad that we did!

The #lovetaupo instagram spot was an absolute traffic hazard - albeit a very cool one - placed centrally on the waterfront, nowhere near any crosswalks. Even us generally law-abiding canucks eventually joined the flock of merry hashtag-seeking jaywalkers. We marvelled at its big, bold execution, as we had not seen this sort of thing in many places at all, as well as the very polite kiwi queueing style.

The hole-in-one-golf challenge was another fun, unique, easily replicable but not seen before municipal marketing and perhaps micro fund-raising gimmick. You could try your hand at hitting a single golf ball for $1.50 or a basket of 25 for $25. Apparently someone hits a hole-in-one about once every two weeks, thus netting a prize worth up to $10,000 from the local sponsors (including some of the fancy holiday resorts).

Next came the World's Coolest McDonald's (it's actually official!) sporting a playspace built around a refitted real DC-3 airplane. And finally we popped by the old American car meetup that happened to be going on that weekend. Ended up being a rather action-packed Sunday morning hour by Lake Taupo.Read more