We planned to go to Hobbiton today, but due to a continuation of grey weather, we opted to skip it and check out other places around Taupo before heading up to Auckland.
Huka Falls is just a little way out from Lake Taupo (past the prawn farm) and it's about a five minute walk from the little carpark. This picture hardly does justice to the water's brilliant shade of blue. Unbelievable.
Since we had a change of plans, we ended up taking a slight detour to Orakei Korako, the Hidden Valley. If you ever make your way down to Orakei Korako, be warned that it is quite hidden. We ended up driving up and down a stretch of road for a little while, trying to find the road that would lead us there. Nonetheless, we managed it eventually and got to visit a tremendously neat geothermal area.
The whole area around Lake Taupo is a geothermal hotspot (see also: our visit to thermal pools last night), and there are a surprising amount of little nooks and crannies with some activity. To get to this place, you take a detour off the main motorway and enjoy a meandering tour of farmland and pine forests before reaching a little spot off the Waikato river.
Orakei Korako is actually on the opposite bank, so to get to the area itself, you need to take a little jetty boat over. Once you do, it's like you step into another world.
View of the Golden Fleece Terrace
We were there on yet another grey and gloomy day, but that really just added to the atmosphere of the place. There were plumes of smoke or steam coming off of the Golden Fleece Terrace and everything just seemed to slow down when we were there.
Emerald Terrace
As we walked around, I had just sense a sense of how raw this country is. New Zealand is, obviously, not known for its long-established cities or its thriving metropolitan scenes. It's very much a country of wilderness, and sometimes we would come across places that felt like they could have been there for millenia.
The fauna around the entire area felt like something out of the prehistoric age. There were unsettlingly bright palm trees peeking out of the dense vegetation, massive ferns. The steps and the aged signs and all of the signs of human involvement were conspicuous and looked out of step with the rest of the place.
Artist's Palette
Apparently, despite the seemingly pristine beauty of the place, there has been quite a bit of the human hand involved. In 1961, people built a dam that raised the level of the Waikato River and flooded a good portion of the active geothermal areas. In either case, what's left is really remarkable.
In the grey drizzle, everything seemed subdued and the entire world felt muted. I imagine that on a sunny day the colours of the place must be genuinely unearthly.
Sometimes all you can do is look at the country and think, Oh New Zealand.
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