Lake Taupo

Finally left stinky city and headed for Lake Taupo, another thermal resort. But on the way we just had to do one more stinky thermal park. At the thermal wonder park we saw a Gieser errupt at 10:15 exactly...ok it was induced by man, rumour has it early prisoners disovered that when they washed in the warm pool it errupted, due to the soap they were using, so for the last 80 years they have been using soap to reduce the surface tension and make Lady Knox to errupt at exactly 10:15... We then did a tour of the thermal park seeing some amazing sites with pools of varying chemical compounds, one which was a bright green colour...


After leaving the thermal park we headed south west to Lake Taupo, and phew when we got there no stink...We decided to get the most out of another thermal bath we should do some exercise...so we hired some bikes and set off through a forest to Hukka falls....Unfortunatly the path was not that great and little man came off his bike when his wheels locked up on some gravel...So it turned into more of a walk in places...oh well...Anyway coming home we decided to take a new route which meant some steep hills but we eventually made it back home, and for a reward we went to the thermal bath for a good soak....and my was it great. It was outside but the water in the pool was 40 degrees so as long as you were below the water line it was really nice. There was also a couple of nice features, like a warm water fall and warm jets...

For dinner we stumpled upon the prize winner pizza resteraunt in NZ, and third in the world. The pizza's were cooked in proper wooden ovens, and the owner took a load of trouble cooking the pizza's, no Dommino's conveyer here....the pizza's were constantly coming in and out of the oven as he checked the pizza's to see when they were cooked to perfection. The guy had a sense of humour to when it came to naming the pizza's, like Run Bamby Run ( guess the meat topping on that one )...He also managed to make a pizza just for the British Rugby supporters called Barmy Army which had Chips, Roast Meat, Veg and Gravy...

Next day we went to Hamilton, on enroute went to the Volcanic centre. The Volcanic centre had various demonstrations on how earthquakes effective New Zealand, and it doesn't look like much of NZ escapes the effect of eathquakes....I guess the landscape we have seen to date bears that out, there is hardly any part that is really flat...


Arrived in Halilton and stayed in an Airport Motel, was ok but the food in the resteraunt was simply out of this world. The Airport is so tiny its unreal and this little Motel has a great chef working for it, and cause of the 3:1 ratio of NZ dollars to pounds eating out is a complete bargin...

Tomorrow getting the plane Christ Church..