Great Eastern Journey, Sat, 02 Mar 2013 | written by Simon
Simon at a Lake, Waterfall in Australia & Oceania, New Zealand

Moving on: Taupo. When I arrived it turned out that some bicycle race is talking place and half the town is closed off. I couldn’t get down to the lake, but a couple helpful people pointed me to an alternative: hot springs, river and a waterfall. The hot spring turned out to be a stream running into the river. The effect is amazing – you get closer to the steam, it gets hotter, and then you can just move away deeper in the river, and it’s cold. Like Roman baths, just natural, and you don’t even need to get out of the river! The spring is so hot that its pretty impossible to get near it – I was appreciating it from a safe distance. Since it was getting late, I decided to leave the thermal waters for now and go towards the Hooka Falls. A pleasant half an hour walk down the Waikato river and here it is, cut out in the rock. I couldn’t help myself and had to go over the fence to a place much cooler than the official viewing point, because you can get to the rocks overhanging the water. So up to here this note is written while I’m sitting on a rock with my feet dangling over the waterfall. Again, photos to follow.  

After the falls I went back to the thermal waters. The water level has risen in the meantime (there is a dam on Waikato which gets lowered at certain times, one of the local bathers explained) which meant it was possible to get closer to the streams. I actually managed to sit under one of the small waterfalls – what a fantastic feeling! While I was changing from hot to cold and chatting with the other people there, it started getting dark. The place looked even more fantastic at night, with people sitting in the shallow hot water in the starlight – it’s cloudy today and there wasn’t much of it, but it was still great. After a while of that I decided to go back to my car and prepare to sleep, since tomorrow I want to hit the road as early as possible, best around 6am. It’s good two hours drive to my next destination, and I need to be there early if I want to complete what the guide says is a 3-4 day trek in two days.