Day 23 Saturday, September 18 -- Tongariro N.P. to Coromandel Peninsula

Synopsis

We were again let down by the rain, and could not see any of the highly acclaimed scenery in the area. We didn’t spend much time there since there was no chance of it clearing that day and headed north past Taupo (the trout capitol of NZ) and Rotorua (the center of NZ’s geothermal attractions). We took a couple of side diversions along the way to Haka Falls (the most voluminous in NZ, but only 10m tall) and to the Blue and Green lakes, which weren’t. We didn’t visit any of the geothermal sites because we figured it wasn’t too different than Yellowstone, which we’d already seen twice. We ended up on the Coromandel Peninsula, near the famed Hot Beach, for the night.

Detailed Journal

We woke up at about 8:30 and looked outside to a cold and rainy day. Thus, getting out of the sleeping bags was again an arduous task. We heated up some toast and had some cereal for breakfast. We headed down the road a little bit to the Whakapapa Visitor’s Center. We soon learned, as we expected, that we would not be seeing any peaks today due to low clouds and poor visibility. They suggested a couple of walks that were ok in the rain, but we opted to head onwards, rather than spending time hiking in the rain to see nothing in particular.

We drove on towards Taupo, a town on a lake by the same name. The lake was fairly sizeable, and from what we could tell, the largest on the north island. In terms of beauty, it really had nothing on it’s counterparts on the south island. Some of that was probably due to the fact that it was a cloudy day with no visibility of the mountains to its south, but Jason imagined that even on a sunny day it wouldn’t quite compare. Taupo is the self-proclaimed Trout Capital of NZ, and commemorates this with a large statue of a trout near the town center. Needless to say, we spent little time in Taupo, other than taking advantage of their info center in order to get some information on rainforest excursions. We asked the ladies at the i-site about overnight hammock trips in the rainforest (which we had heard about from a friend who had done it), but none of them knew anything about it. They suggested we try the DOC office in Rotorua.

On our way out of town, we called the DOC office in Rotorua, who had also never heard of any hammock adventures in the rainforest. Just north of Taupo is what our guidebook described as “NZ’s most impressive water falls”. Although it is one of NZ’s most voluminous, it is only 10 meters high, and failed to impress us too much, especially when compared with the abundance of examples on the South Island. From there, we headed on towards Rotorua, but stopped at Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Reserve to fix some lunch. We decided not to pay the $20 entrance fee and check out the area (we've seen Yellowstone several times, now), and ate our grilled cheese and corn and potato soup (which was pretty much just creamed corn) in the parking lot.

When we got to Rotorua, we decided to take a side trip to the Blue and Green Lakes, which were not particularly blue or green because of the overcast sky. However, from an overview point of both lakes, the green and blue could be perceived (barely). We continued on our trek towards the Coromandel Peninsula, finding our way to the northern coast at Tauranga. We stopped in Mt. Maunganui, a small, touristy beach community to do some shopping. We crossed over a bridge with a nice view of Mt. Mangauni (a small hill coming out of the ocean at the end of a small peninsula). On our way out of Tauranga, we stopped at a nice overlook of Tauranga Harbor, then headed up the Coromandel Peninsula as the sun was setting. We stopped in Whangamata, a small town on the southern end of the peninsula, to get a local paper to see when low tide would be the next day. The hot beach could only be seen at low tide, which was going to next occur at 4am, and then 4pm. Lynette suggested that we drive on to the hot beach and have a moonlight (or starlight, as the case may be) soak.

We pulled into Hot Springs Beach at about 7:30pm and found “No Camping” signs everywhere. So, we pulled into the Hot Springs Motor Camp, which looked pretty deserted. We pulled through the park, tuned around, and sat by what we thought was the laundry facility while we decided what to do at this point. While we were deciding, a lady, who happened to be the owner, popped out of the building. She said we were welcome to stay for $20, so we picked the nearest power outlet to the entrance (within easy walking distance of the Hot Springs Beach), filled up our water tank and settled in for the night. We ate our mandatory once-per-week Mexican meal, which was nacho-style tacos (again), accompanied by Montieths Original. We didn’t waste much time getting to bed since we were planning on getting up at 3am to take advantage of low tide.

Pictures

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