North Island Wanderings

After some debate we decided to spend the bulk of the summer and fall on the South Island.  This meant we needed to take the Cook Straight ferry.  The ferry is often booked months or weeks out during the peak season (right now really).  Our NZMCA membership lets us book ferry crossings at a discounted rate, but we still need to find an open spot!.  After a few hours of fiddling around with poorly-designed websites, we were able to book the second to last open slot with BlueBridge on December 26th.  This was the only opening for several weeks.  This gave us some time to go pick up our self-containment certification (from Auckland) and to attempt (unsuccessfully) to pick up my hiking boots.  I have been trying for over 6 weeks now to get a new pair of boots shipped to us.  AUS had a terrible selection, and egregious prices, so I opted to have them shipped from Europe.  Well, the shipper never actually sent them (some mix-up, I guess).  And the NZ customs service is atrociously slow, taking 7-14 days to process international mail!

So, with a week to burn on the North Island, we took a meandering path towards Auckland. Our first stop was the Taupō (pronounced Toe-paw).  This lake sits amongst a number of dormant and extinct volcanic cones, with the nearby valley being very geothermally active.
 
Of course, Jen can’t help but take photos of every wildflower she sees.
  







We hiked up Mt Tauhara for some views of lake Taupo and the volcanic mountains of the interior.   The track was a bit eroded in places.








Several mountains here are snow-capped for most of the year.  This one has a crater lake at its summit.


The vast majority of NZ's native old-growth forests have been logged for timber farms or agriculture.  So it is always interesting when we hike in the remoter, untouched patches, as there are very old gnarly beech and other native trees.


This whole area has a number of rivers and dams which are used to produce hydroelectric power, most feeding from lake Taupo.  Huka Falls was nearby, so we gave it a visit.


About 5 Olympic swimming pools plunge over these falls per minute.




The Craters of the Moon park (not nearly as moon-like as the Idaho park of the same name) is a large geothermal field covered with craters, steam vents, mud pits etc.  Beneath this valley is a large water reservoir, heated by the volcanic magma chamber deeper in the crust.  The resulting steam often finds its way out to the surface.  It is so active that a nearby geothermal power plant is powered by the steam.  When the resulting high pressure steam finds its way to the surface, very strange things can result.


Notice the lack of trees?  Well just a few inches below the surface, the soil is boiling hot.  Only small plants and shrubs can grow in the cooler shallow layer.


Every few years a vent gets blocked.  The steam builds up and the resulting explosion creates a new crater.


Hmm, I wonder what's cooking? (Some smell like rotten eggs.)












Most of the wildlife you will see wandering about was imported by Europeans, or the Māori natives.   Here are a couple examples of the European imports.

A very fat hedgehog.


Pheasant.


Quail.