This morning we grabbed breakfast at a great place called Victoria's Cafe Kitchen Bar. River was a bit of a handful as one year olds occasionally are, so I had to exit stage left with him to let him run wild in a grassy field nearby until the food arrived.
From there we headed to the top attraction in Taupō - Huka Falls. Lake Taupō, which at 237 square miles is just over 45 square miles larger than Lake Tahoe, or roughly 1/3 the size of Maui - dumps water out via the Waikato River - the longest river in New Zealand, which terminates into the Tasman Sea 264 miles downstream, just South of Auckland. Just a couple miles after the Waikato leaves Lake Taupō it enters a narrow ravine and the water speeds up into massive rapids before dropping nearly 60,000 gallons of water per second over a nearly 40 foot waterfall.
A bridge over the river gives a birds eye view of the raging waters below.
We walked downstream a bit to where there was a viewing point to see the falls - which we had just found out from a friend that some people kayak down. A bit intimidating to imagine! While we were there a Jetboat tour made its way up the river right to the base of the falls, which was fun to see.
From Huka Falls, we went in search of hot springs - our search lead us a mile upstream of Huka Falls, where Otumuheke Stream feeds into the Waikato River. Otumuheke is a little stream fed by a hot spring, and it pours into a series of small pools before emptying into the Waikato river. The area is called Spa Park, which sounded pretty promising, and as it turned out there is a really large community park - including a playground, fields, and a mountain bike park, which you walk through to get to Spa Park. The Waikato is a beautiful and serene river at the point where Otumuheke pours into it via a tiny waterfall, giving little indication of the chaos of Huka Falls which lurks down river.
Upon arriving at Otumuheke Stream it took a few minutes to figure out how to access the little pools as it was a bit steep and overgrown. But Reef and I eventually got ourselves down there and eased into the water. All dreams of a nice toasty hot spring slowly vanished as we realized the water was just lukewarm. We moved from pool to pool in search of hotter water but to no avail. It was perfectly comfortable to sit in, but with outside temperatures of just under 50, I knew the second we exited the water, we'd be freezing.
With our report on the water temperature, Sharyl decided against getting in just to freeze on the way back to the car. Thankfully there is a little cafe set-up right next to Otumuheke Stream, so we were able to get Reef a hot chocolate, and Sharyl and I got hot coffees- all was well. The guy working at the cafe was super nice and with Reef poking his head around to see the door to the place (it was a converted shipping container), the guy invited Reef to look around. Well, Reef made himself at home behind the counter, and the guy even came out front to let Reef run the shop for him for a couple minutes (there were about 3 other people in the area all of whom had already been served).
The guy at the cafe said the stream previously was much hotter but the local geothermal electricity provider apparently inadvertently tapped into the same heat source as what heats the stream, a little over a year ago, and since then the water has been lukewarm. While we had our warm drinks, I was briefly cornered by a conspiracy theorist (apparently New Zealand has them too), who was very nice but full of "unconventional" information. Once I managed to extract myself from the conversation we headed out. After a quick stop in at the hotel we went back to the Two Mile Bay Sailing Club again for dinner. When we were there a couple days ago we loved the food, but the inside was just too crowded, so this time we layered up to be ready for the mid-40's temperature and settled ourselves into one of the many outdoor tables with epic views and no crowds. It was a simple but delicious meal to celebrate Sharyl and my 13th wedding anniversary today!
Back at the hotel we finally found our hot spring. It turns out the pool and hot tub here at the Reef Resort are actually hot spring fed. While Reef and I were in the hot tub a valve went off and all of a sudden a sheet about 4 feet wide of very hot water started pouring out of the rocks next to the hot tub and into the water. Apparently when the temperature drops to a certain point they release hot spring water and get the temperatures back up. It was awesome! Sharyl brought River down and we all got to enjoy the warm water on our last night here in Taupō!
Comments
Post a Comment