Lake Rotopounamu

It was time for another hike! Rotopounamu is about 20 min away from Lake Taupo (properly pronounced as “toepaw“ as I’ve been told) and a 2h hike around a crater lake, surrounded by a lovely forest with spectacularly growing trees (see for yourself, though it really depends on what kind of growth patterns tickle your fancy), and most importantly, a lot of moss. Moss is awesome. We found a tree that was steaming in the sunlight after it had been raining for a while. It was tough to capture it on camera (Attempted with pic n°5 - The fuzzy areas on the left and right of the tree may give you a hint of the steam we saw rising from it. For a better effect I might suggest taking off your glasses. If you’re not normally wearing glasses, find some and put them on.)
After a few days of rain and wind, the sky slowly cleared up in the late afternoon. Really slowly. That excited us because we wanted to stargaze at Lake Taupo after a delicious dinner that Maddie cooked upon my request (lasagna). The sunset tried its best to be spectacular. I gave it a solid C+. We enjoyed a bit of sparkling wine before we wanted to go stargazing. I was so excited at the prospect of seeing the Milky Way that I neglected to use the ideal exposure time. ^^
The night sky was impressive but not better than what we had seen at campsites before. We identified the possible culprit that was hiding behind obscure clouds: The moon. We probably won’t get the chance to see the Milky Way as long as that little dickens is lurking about.Read more