After Masterton, we had a long drive to Taupo, a tourist town on the northern end of Lake Taupo, NZ’s largest lake.  Taupo is in the midst of a large volcanic region, with three active volcanoes at the south end of the lake, and hot pools, springs, steam vents, etc. scattered around the northern end.  The night we arrived and next day were dominated with bad weather from Cyclone Pam, so lots of rain and clouds.  On our first afternoon, we visited Craters of the Moon, a small area of steam vents and dried mud pools.  Not very interesting but a nice walk.  The next day, we went to see the Aratiatia Rapids on the Waikato River.  There is a hydro dam there, and a few times a day, they release an enormous quantity of water back into the river, so we tourists flock to the overlook to watch this man-made spectacle.  The river gushed for about half and hour, then we headed upstream to the Huka Falls to see the water that flows out of Lake Taupo.  A lovely waterfall with lots of tourists.

The drive into Taupo.  This is volcano country.  🙂

Craters of the Moon.  It was interesting and a nice walk but certainly not spectacular.

The Aratiatia Rapids dam spilling it’s water.

The Aratiatia Rapids a bit below the dam.  It was really raging.

The Huka Falls is a narrow slit in the rock that ends in a 10 maybe 15 foot drop.  This water is coming from Lake Taupo and feeds the lake formed by the dam.

A hilltop view of the town of Taupo with the lake in the background.

The next day we drove north about an hour to Rotorua, an active thermal area with geysers, hot springs and mud pools.  We went to Te Puia, which is both a thermal reserve and a Maori cultural attraction.  There was one impressive geyser and one good mud pool, but if you’ve seen Yellowstone, the thermal area here is, in my opinion, not worth the entry fee.  Very boring.  But we got to see a Maori concert and took a 1 1/2 tour with a Maori guide, and both of these were excellent and definitely worth the visit.  We had seen many Maori exhibits in the many museums we’ve visited, but we got a much better understanding of what we’d been looking at and how these things fit in to the Maori culture.  They also have both a carving and weaving school here that are designed to pass on the Maori skills to a few select individuals.  We then did a very quick walk around the Government Garden in town and then headed back to Taupo.

The Maori culture center we visited.  It was quite an operation.

The meeting house were we saw the concert.

The concert.  It was really quite well done and it really seemed the “performers” wanted to share their culture with all us tourists.

A Maori war canoe.

The one mud pot.

The one geyser.  As Barb said if you have never seen mud pots and/or geysers these were quite impressive.  However Yellowstone has us a bit jaded.