May 12, 2008 - Napier to Rotorua

May 12, 2008 – Napier to Rotorua

 

Weather: Started cloudy then turned mostly fine.

 

Today we drove through Taupo over to Rotorua.  It’s a pleasant drive starting out through some lower mountains and across some plateau areas and then down into Taupo.  The sun was out early and the first part of the drive through the hills was really neat with the sun being low it highlighted all the undulations in the hill sides.  The hill sides were bright green and you could see all the Hobbit Houses there.  Didn’t see any Hobbit’s moving about though.

 

The green pasture hills turned into forestry areas where the main crop is lumber.  We drove through many miles of patchwork quilt areas where clear cutting had been done and trees replanted.  The squares were of varying maturity and stretched as far as you could see.  Then we came to an area where they had not replanted and the scrap from the cutting had been put into very large piles.  This left large areas of field that had been leveled and planted with grass.  Joan and I thought that maybe the land was going to be developed for housing but Jay (team member) says that the land is being converted back to pasture land.  It would be interesting to know the story behind this conversion.  Are the forestry companies required to convert the land back for ecology, maybe more money in cattle than lumber production, etc.?

 

Then it was down into Taupo at the top end of Lake Taupo.  The downtown area along the lake is especially nice with manygift shops and then more stores further back of a more supportive nature such as groceries, pharmacies, etc.  Along the shore runs a beautiful city park and is a nice place for enjoying the view of the lake with the snowcapped mountains beyond.  At one point on the lake is a golf tee for driving balls out into the lake.  They have a hole set up on a platform and apparently if you can put a ball into the hole there is a substantial prize.

 

Just north of Taupo we stopped again at the overview for the wellheads for the geothermal power generation plant.  Totally amazing place.  They are currently using around 59 wells. The wells are about 6,000 feet deep and the superheated fluid (their term but water) comes up at around 240C and then travels through pipes (big ones) to the power plant about 5 km away at 200 kmph.  We crossed paths with the Krohn’s there and then headed on up to Rotorua. 

 

 

Lake Taupo

 

 

 

Taupo Public Toilets - very nice!

 

 

 

Taupo ducks!

 

This evening after our devotions and meeting I went and soaked in the mineral baths at the campground.  That’s very relaxing and hopefully will have some medicinal effects on the cold I have been trying to shake.

 

Another good day.  Tomorrow the Farmshow and Hangi Feast in the evening.

 

Kiwi Word of the Day – Pot plant – potted plant (not marijuana)