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Taupo All Seasons Holiday Park, Taupo, North Island, New Zealand. 2225km

For Pictures Click Here and Here

Our luck with the weather ended a few days ago and now it seems we are doomed for several more iffy days. We left Whanganui on a sunny morning and headed north on a beautiful drive called the Whanganui River Road. This narrow and winding road tracks the river upstream for over 100km. The second part of the road is gravel, so we took it very slow. The whole area is a Maori stronghold, with no services like gas or groceries.

The views were fantastic. We stopped for lunch in Jersusalem, a quiet village housing a famous church and mission built in the 1800’s. the nuns welcomed us very kindly and smiled when we told them that we are from the land of the other Jerusalem. In the background we could hear Maori chantings, and it turns out that there was a funereal going on the hill beyond the church. We later saw the friends and family of the deceased (an elderly “brother” who died peacefully) going to their marae (meeting house) for a meal.
These Maoris have a localized Christian belief, with many additional traditions from ancient days. They were all wearing black, modern clothing. I chatted up a tough looking biker dude who was really nice in explaining his tattoos and all. He looked to intimidating though for a picture.

After Jerusalem we continued on the gravel road, enjoying the scenery and stopping every once in a while to take a picture. The road was very narrow so it’s a good thing we barely met any oncoming cars.

After leaving the river road we drove for another half hour and reached Ohakune (Large Carrot in Maori) where we stayed in a nice campground. It started raining just as we got there, but luckily there was a playroom for the kids inside. A local guide informed me that the bad weather was going to last at least a few days, so my plans for hiking in the nearby Tongariro park needed a revision.

We left for Taupo Thursday morning, hoping that further north we may find a break in the rain. Unfortunately it rained most of the day and we had to keep the kids busy in the RV. In the late afternoon we had a few hours break in the rain, but the playground was soaked. We did some jumping pillow and got our feet wet, but when it started to rain I hurried the kids back inside.

Friday was cloudy / rainy so we opted for the Volcanic Activity Center where we learned about New Zealands precarious position at the juncture of two tectonic plates, explaining the earthquakes, volcanoes and other geothermal events. Just before lunch we managed to see the Huka Falls nearby, which are a major tourist attraction but kind of disappointed me. In the afternoon we had another dry spell so we hiked around Craters of the Moon, a nice boardwalked tour of fumaroles and volcanic craters. My glasses, serving me well for the last 3 years chose to break in the frame while we were hiking. Now I look very silly.

In our campground we met a nice Israeli couple, Mimi and Ehud that are also religious. They prepared sufganiot (Doughnuts) for Hanukkah and also had a real menorah and candles. Ron was very excited.

 

Today we walked around Taupo and found a temporary solution to my glasses problem. They will ship in a replacement part by Tuesday. It is a nice touristy town but nothing extraordinary. We had a tasty falafel lunch and learned that the proprietor actually learned the art for 3 months in Israel a few years ago.

We are pretty much done with Taupo, so if the weather improves we will return to the Tongariro area tomorrow morning.

Good night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 4:10 am and is filed under Big Trip, New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.