New Zealand Day Three - May 26th, 2009 (Part Three)

The drive North from Gravity Canyon took us along the Desert Highway, through an area known to LOTR fans as Mordor. A large chunk of this highway sported signs warning drivers to stay on the highway and to never stray off on the fun adventurous looking dirt tracks that branched out into the desert now and then - a lot of the desert was reserved for military training and explosives testing. I kept hoping we'd see something blow up, but we weren't so lucky. Off in the distance to the West of the highway we could see the three active volcanos that stand in one of New Zealand's national parks; together these three volcanos made up Mt. Doom.



Just North of the national park Ashley and I found a small lake to stop and take pictures at. We didn't know what to expect to see, but we did find swings!

And of course, the lake was beautiful - but cold. Not a pleasant temperature to consider dipping your feet into.

Upon hearing of Ashley's plans to travel to New Zealand, a couple of her co-workers became a bit of a nuisance to her. One in particular acted as if she knew everything there was to know about New Zealand (I think she had made the trip once), and had immediately jumped online to check out the weather forecast and who knows what else (I mentioned her in Day Two's blog... you might want to reference the post). We were delighted to see trees all around this area that were still happily changing colors in the spirit of Autumn! We also saw tree farm after tree farm (logging is big in NZ), and stopped to get pictures with some of the really big ones (Ashley even had me run across a three-lane highway to get the picture).

The next stop we made was at the National Trout Centre - a free little attraction right in the middle of nowhere. Half of it was undergoing improvements/construction, etc. since the busiest tourist season had just ended, but we were still able to see most of the centre. Even though it seemed like the construction workers were constantly watching us.

We learned about their hatchery and how the fish were originally brought to New Zealand from North America (they're rainbow trout - go figure), and of course, we saw lots of fish.

If you ever look at a map of the North Island you'll notice a large lake in the very center. This is Lake Taupo (pronounced toe-po), and was our next destination.

As always, we got out to play and take pictures.

The shore of the lake was very rocky; we didn't see very much sand. I enjoyed discovering that a good portion of the rocks were pumice (a volcanic rock - many people have used such a stone to scrape dead skin off their feet), and proceeded to throw several out into the lake to watch them float.

We were so excited to be getting back into civilization that Ashley started waving at everyone we saw.

Welcome to Taupo! May we introduce you to our pet fish?

After reserving a spot at the Base hostel we decided to do a little souvenir shopping and find a restaurant to do the cooking for the evening. There were souvenir shops on every corner of our street (and a few inbetween!), and plenty of restaurants - unfortunately most of them closed at 5 or 6pm. Why? I don't know, it seemed as though entire cities shut down by 5. We did find one nearly next door to the hostel, and we feasted on some great Indian food. My favorite part of this town however was this building across the street in the park (sorry it's sideways - I tried uploading it twice, and it refuses to flip):

In the spirit of the Loo... Ashley and I were excited to haul our luggage upstairs to our room - that was meant for four people but luckily only was home to us two for the evening, and find a CLEAN restroom all to ourselves. We were grateful that this hostel had the option to avoid unisex restrooms and showers! Even better - the water was HOT and there was a hairdryer. Who could ask for more??