Taupo

The all you can eat Māori feast must have taken it out of us as we didn't wake up till around 9:30am! That's what eating 3 desserts does! They were all very delicious though!

After some breakfast and a very quick shower we packed up and headed towards Taupo. Our showers have to be super quick in the mornings as there is only enough hot water for one 3-4 minute shower. After that you have to put the boiler on again and wait another 20 minutes for the water to heat up. To save doing this twice, we both shower with one lot of water. I am slowly mastering the art of quick showers as Simons showers are getting much warmer (they usually get cold about halfway through).

Taupo is a fairly short hour drive South from Rotorua. Just North of Taupo you can find Huka Falls so we stopped there for some lunch before heading to see the falls. The falls are very small at only 10m but boy are they fierce. The power of the water rushing down the river is immense and it was really loud!

We then headed into Taupo to stop at the trusty tourist information to get some information on things to do in the area. After stocking up on numerous leaflets as it was a bit of a dull afternoon we decided to head to the museum as it was only $5, bargain! It is only a small museum however they had a nice little Māori exhibit as well as the Garden of Wellbeing which won gold at the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show (and they are clearly still very proud of that). My favourite however was the 1950's caravan which was kitted out as if someone had just popped out as well as a cute corner shop with lots of very old tins of food and other bits.

We then found ourselves a cracking little freedom camping (free) spot for the evening at Five Mile Bay and set ourselves up for the evening with a glorious view of the sunset across the lake.Read more