New Year’s Eve Day Travels

A driving day today, taking a scenic route between Auckland and Havelock North. East to the coastal road from Auckland with some striking scenery of coves and bays that went by too fast for any pictures. Then a turn south on highway 27 to Rotatrua, running along the Coromandal mountain range

Then a stop in Rotaroua - which was booked full with tourists, No Vacancy signs were everywhere. Here I got my first view of a tree fern

And in the local, Kuirau Park, we toured a series of hot pools, some of which served as Maori cooking spots as far back as 1300 CE, and which served as swimming pools for people in the Victorian era. They are all enclosed now, to prevent injury to people or animals, and we saw several newly forming steam vents - the precursors to mud pools. 

We also got to stop and soak our feet in the thermal hot pool. 

Elisha took us to a surprise location that was a few miles away from Rotarian that was stunning, Warakei, a small but rapidly flowing waterfall. Fairly recently some fool plunged down this rapid in nothing more than a body board.  He survived, but was severely fined.

We stopped to refuel at a BP gas station and I had to laugh at the pervasiveness of American culture

Next leg was south on highway 5 to a Lake Taupo - another holiday spot with no vacancy signs everywhere. Lake Taupo is in a volcanic crater. I believe this is one I heard about on a podcast I’ve been listening to, History of Aotearoa New Zealand. It mentions that two separate cultures record the fallout from a massive volcanic erosion - one record from China and the other from Greece. If This volcano exploded today, it would wipe out New Zealand. So, of course, we have lunch on the lakeshore with a amazingly clear view of Mt. Doom and Mount Ruapehu (9,176 ft., the snow capped one).

Final leg down highway 5 through the Esk Valley into Napier, Hastings, and our townhouse in Havelock North. This was a painful descent as my ears were still blocked with the cold that refuses to end (finished box #6 of tissues and started on #7). There is a lot of tree farming here of pines for lumber. One minute there are majestic trees, then harvested areas with stumps and roots exposed, then young growth areas, and occasionally stretches where the land was pock-marked as if land mines had exploded at regular spots. These turned out to be the very new plantings from a previously harvested section. It was very odd. 

This was a very long day. We left Auckland at 8 AM and arrived at out townhouse a little after 7 PM. We did not stay up to ring in 2020!