Walk 64, 4th April 2021
Opepe is a place on the Napier-Taupo highway where nine Armed Constabulary soldiers from the Bay of Plenty Calvary were killed in 1869 by an advance party of Te Kooti’s troops.
A side track to the right near the car park brings you to the cemetery where they’re buried.
The bush is beautiful here, it escaped the axe and the Taupo eruption of 186 AD.
Walk: Taupo 37
Links
Te Kooti’s last battle was at the Te Porere Redoubt which we visited in Dec 2018.
Walk 60, 2nd February 2021
Craters of the Moon is a geothermal walk past steaming craters and fumeroles which takes about 40 minutes. There’s a small cover charge for the walk of $8 each to maintain the park. I recommend this walk. The visitor centre is off-grid, with geothermal floor heating and an electricity supply provided by solar cells.
Walk: Taupo 34
Links
Huka Falls is a popular waterfall to visit. The clear blue \ green water thunders through a narrow gap and roars over a spectacular three metre drop at 200,000 litres per second.
Huka means to foam or froth.
We started the walk from Spa Park . The start of the walk began near a popular swimming hole where a hot spring joins the Waikato River.
Walk: Taupo 35
Lake Taupo is New Zealand’s largest lake. The whole basin is an old caldera. The last eruption around 180AD, believed to be the largest in recorded history, blew Taupo dust to Java. There are still active thermal areas, especially at Waireki in the northeast and Tokaanu in the southwest.
This walk is in sections: one from Taupo to Five Mile Bay, and another section from Wharewaka Point to Five Mile Bay, which I walked on New Year’s Day the year before.
The official walk begins in town where the lake empties into the Waikato river and goes for 7kms to Wharewaka Point.
Here are some of the Lake’s measurements:
I did this walk on 1st Jan 2018.
This walk is from Wharewaka to the Yacht Club by the Waikato River. I did it with Meredith, Colleen and Lyn on Easter weekend 2021.
Walk: Taupo 36
There were stone alignments at Waipoua Forest, Maunganui Bluff, Northland and Koru Pa, Taranaki. This appears to be another site. Many of the rocks are in an unnatural standing position. If these were boulders spewed-forth from a violently erupting volcano, then they would neither look so regularly shark’s-fin shaped nor would they sit so perfectly upright.
Fortunately these boulders haven’t been lost to the bulldozers, they are sitting in plain sight at the Lake Taupo Scenic lookout reserve.
Links
History:
Lake Taupo is named after the explorer Tia, a chief from the Arawa canoe. The full name of the lake is Te Taupō-nui-a-Tia. When the people of the Te Arawa landed at Maketū, Tia travelled up the Kaituna River to Rotorua. Tia continued west until he came to the Waikato River. He noted the murkiness of the water and reasoned that someone was ahead of him. This place was named Ātiamuri (Tia who follows behind). Determined to meet those responsible for the muddy water, Tia hurried after them. At a place near Wairākei he came to some river rapids whose tiered form fascinated him. Today they are called Aratiatia (the stairway of Tia). Journeying on to present-day Lake Taupō, he was disappointed to find a large tribe, *Ngāti Hotu, already living there.
Sourced from Te Ara.govt.nz, Ngāti Tūwharetoa.
*Ngato Hotu: see The First People.
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