Welcome to Rotarua + Taupo

Good morning! I just woke up and am so excited to tell you all about the great long weekend I've just had. I'm back in Auckland now, just in time for the start of a very busy week, but this weekend I got to go to Rotarua and Taupo in the central north island with friends. Both Rotarua and Taupo are geothermal zones so we saw lots of hot pools, mud pools and a few geysers. All of Rotarua smells like sulfur. One of the people I was there with is a chemist for a geothermal power company, so I learned a lot about the area and geothermal activity. Most of the hot pools are far too hot to bathe in, but there are several areas where you can jump in and go for a swim. We went to a public hot pool spa in Taupo and I really enjoyed it. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was kayaking on the Waikato river. We also had a great time jumping off a rope swing into the river near the public kayak access. The Waikato is New Zealand's longest river, and it flows out of Great Lake Taupo. There are a lot of mountains around Lake Taupo and that's where most people in the north island go skiing and snowboarding during the winter.

The Waikato

Kayaking! The last time I went, it was sea kayaking with my mom in Mexico.

It's a bit easier with a current : )

This is the Haka Falls on the Waikato. We kayaked the section of the river between lake Taupo and here.

Some very experienced kayakers actually go over the falls. Its much bigger and far more powerful than it appears in the picture. Standing where I was, it was difficult to talk because of how loud the water was.

Another thing I did over the weekend was go to a Maori cultural performance at Te Po in Rotarua. Almost all of the Maori tribes lived on the North Island, especially in the central area. There are still a lot of Maori people in that area and the culture is apparent throughout the communities.

Performers.

The Marae meeting house where the performance took place.

This is a traditional Maori meeting house. They are intricately

carved and very sacred.

We also went up in some gondolas in Rotarua and then went down the luge tracks at the top. The view on the gondolas and at the top of the hill was great. There were also a few little walks and mountain biking tracks that could be accessed from the gondolas. Anyway, luging was tons of fun!

Gondola. You can also kind of get an idea of the view from this picture.

Here are the luge tracks. There were three tracks, scenic, intermediate and advanced.

The scenic track is 2km long.

Usually I'm not one to enjoy car rides, but I was in awe of the scenery for the entire trip and the lengthy ride flew by. There was a new and beautiful view around every turn. My dad warned me that I would be amazed by the size of the sky and the enormous scale of all of the mountains and trees... and I certainly was. It was a little like upstate New York, but even more grand. Living in Auckland, its funny to think that only four million people live in New Zealand, but on the drive I really got some insight into how spread out the population is. It seemed like there was one house every few kilometers outside of towns, which all felt about as large as Paw Paw. Most of the land is used for farming or commercial logging. Its incredible to see all the hundreds of sheep, cows, goats and deer grazing on the sides of the very steep hills. I hope you all had a good weekend as well! A few people have asked to know more about Auckland Uni and the research I'm involved in. Plan on hearing about it tomorrow! 

Until then!

Lots of love

-A

Some more Haka Falls pictures (some, clearly candids!)