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After a good night's sleep in Taupo, my hair had rested and was rejuvenated -- ready for a full-on day of Lake Taupo! Some standard pictures of the visitor's centre. I like how marketdroids think a lot of themselves and come up with these great slogans: "Lake Taupo Think Fresh." Lovely. Here are some pictures of Lake Taupo and Mount Ruapehu (sp?) -- These include the ever-famous "Picture of Lake and Mountain with Man's Hand." This was a little three-hour tour Fenny and I took to see the Lake Taupo area. Our guide, whom you'll see more of later, was just doing this job as a hobby more than anything. Fenny and I were his only customers on this particular tour, so it was quite personalised. Nice. Prawn Park. The horror. The terror. In Prawn Park, no-one can hear you scream. No-one that cares, anyway, because they're all decadent and prawn-eaters. If you do not know why you should fear the Great Prawn, please do a Google search on it. Spare yourself the agony of being eaten by the decapod legions when they come. Prawn Park. Proof that It's All Real. Here are some pictures at a dam downstream of Lake Taupo when things are empty and there's not much to see. We were here to see the awesome fury of the damn when it opened up, letting the waters scream through, and turning this boulder-ridden chunk of valley into a rushing whitewater rapids. Right. It's actually a small country so they sometimes get a little amused by small things... as you'll see. The floodgates are open! PH34R 7H3 FL00DG473S! These pictures do a good job of capturing the full fury and drama of the situation. The gates opened a little bit. A little bit of water came out. I quickly grew bored of this, so Fenny, myself, and our guide crossed the road to see the water coming out the other side... The water levels begin to rise. Those boulders you see at the top of the last photo are where the rapids will begin. Apparently, when river kayakers want to kayak these rapids, they will park their kayaks in the little sandy bits to the left of the big, blue pool. A series of pictures showing the water level rising. You can see that the sandy bit to the left becomes a fairly calm and stable pool where the kayakers can wait for the water level to become right before starting their downstream journey. So, bored of watching the water rise on the other side, I returned to the one side to see the two wide-open gates letting water through. As you can see, now only one gate is open, and certainly not wide open. For whatever reason, they'd closed the right gate. Our guide said that he'd never seen them re-close the second gate before. Something must've been wrong that day. Bored of the dam, we moved on to the thermal bit down the road. I took a picture of a gaiser -- here -- with my thumb on the side to ensure the excitement of future viewers (you). The gaiser went maybe 400 metres deep, and the water was quite hot, hotter than boiling. Maybe 140 degrees or something? Thing to note: the vegetation around this gaiser is gray and nasty dead looking. I'm not sure how the vegetation lived with their leaves covered by ash or soot or whatever they were covered with. Does photosynthesis work through a thick layer of soot? Why the vegetation is nasty gray dead coloured. This is a power station using the geothermal energy to generate electricity. Our guide told us many interesting facts about these pipes, but I can't remember any of them, and I figure if they weren't worth my memorising, they're not worth me telling you. Suffice it to say the steam would go through those pipes VERY VERY fast. Something in excess of 200kph. And where the pipes go UP in the air, straight a bit, then back DOWN to the ground are places that help the pipes to expand and contract with the heat of their contents. A cool bug that landed on my hand. An amusing distraction. An insect, a six-legged bastard. These are two pictures of Fenny and myself, standing as still as possible, attempting to hold the same pose for two different pictures. I think we did an admirable job of holding the same pose, despite the fact that I look like a complete goober in both. No matter, it does capture my handsome demeanor quite well. Our guide took us to a thermal activity field called The Craters of the Moon or something the like. It was alright. A bunch of active volcanic thingies, boiling mudpits, and dangerous collapsing bits of ground. This is the first time you get to see our guide, more than his hand. I would recommend them, I guess. The tour itself was slow-paced, perhaps even boring, which is a good thing when you're on holiday. Fenny considering my slowness. Some of the beautiful scenery. This is the top of a crater that was formed when something underground got angry and blew a few tonnes of dirt, mud, and boiling shite all over the area. It was a comfort to know that we were walking through all this mess and that it probably wouldn't do it while we were there. But there weren't any real guarantees. New Zealand (Aotearoa) can be an exciting place. Fenny in front of the stanky steam. Here was a nice hole in the ground that was constantly jetting out a loud plume of hot sulphur-smelling steam. It was cool to have the guide tell us the hole this steam was coming out of was about 1 or 2 kilometres deep, and the steam was -- well -- hot as hell. Here were the most beautiful parts of the whole Pits of Despair... erhm -- I mean, the Craters of the Moon bit. Some multicoloured patches of mud and rock with plants growing on. These pictures are dedicated to Nickster who said that if I came all the way to New Zealand and took pictures of birds, he'd be really pissed off (or something). For Nickster, birds. At a lake. And everything. Pictures taken so I could remember that New Zealand phrases are different than the United States. "Situations Vacant." Cool. These two individuals (discluding Fenny) recommended that we should go skydiving! So we booked a skydiving tour, and the anxious wait began! Some pictures of the Berkenhoff Lodge, which sucked, where we stayed for so many days. In New Zealand, they call the space at the back of the car, where you stow things, the 'boot,' not the 'trunk' as in the United States. Cool. Berkenhoff Lodge. Where we stayed. The sign says "Own Shower Toilet" and elsewhere promised ensuites. As it turned out, the "ensuite" and "Own Shower Toilet" only applied to some rooms, which discluded the room we were staying in. Excellent. A dishonest, dirty backpackers situated about 45 minutes walk from town! We decided to take a glow-worm cruise during the evening. This is us waiting on our shuttle. The glow worm cruise! During the cruise, I took a picture or two. Both of which turned out as fully black images with specks of white here and there (moths in the light). I deleted the images and must apologise to those purists that want to see EVERY picture from our trip. If you really want to get a good idea of what it was like, close your eyes for ten minutes. |
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