Tuesday, March 14 - Wellington to Taupo

Wellington to Taupo - 435 km driving

Heading north from Wellington

One of our longer driving days, but thankfully the North Island roads we’re taking are a lot flatter, straighter, and easier to navigate than those we enjoyed on the South. Heading north from Wellington takes us through beautiful rolling wine country again, and Erik is thrilled when we pass Peka Peka - before the trip his grandparents had given him a book telling the true story of an Antarctic penguin who had washed up there a few years ago and was helped back home by the good people of New Zealand.

At about the halfway point of our drive is the Bruce Park Scenic Reserve, one of the few remaining stretches of the original ancient forest in the area. We stop for a quick picnic lunch and then explore the short walking trail through the park. We’re glad we made the stop - it feels good to stretch our legs and the forest is amazingly peaceful, considering how close it is to the highway. It really does feel like we’ve stepped millions of years back in time and we might run into a grazing brachiosaurus around the next corner or something.

Stretching our legs at Bruce Park Scenic Reserve

Jurassic forest!

Stormy day in the Rangipo Desert

Back to Harvey and we continue our trek up the Desert Road. The Rangipo isn’t a Sahara-style sandy desert, but kind of more like tundra - scrubby low plants and gently rolling hills. A lot of this area is used for army maneuvers and survival training, and it’s easy to see why. As we get to the top of the desert, we get back into mountains - and especially notable for us LotR-heads, there’s Mt Ngauruhoe, a.k.a. Mount Doom. Since one does not simply drive an RV into Mordor, we keep it on our left as we approach the sparkling, vividly blue-green waters of Lake Taupo. This is probably the day out of the whole trip with the widest variety of scenery - everything from a good-sized city to desert to mountains and lakes that remind us of the Wanaka region on the South Island.

I think we found somewhere to leave that pesky ring....

Sunnier skies as we reach Lake Taupo

After today’s long drive we decide to treat ourselves by staying at the swankiest campsite we’ve visited so far - the Taupo DeBretts holiday park. The campsites and facilities here are all top-notch, and the highlight is a set of the loveliest hot pools we’ve ever seen - natural geothermally-heated mineral water that feels silky-soft and wonderfully soothing after all the bumps and squeezes of RV living. The spa is set up as a beautiful little oasis of multiple small pools at different temperatures, with waterfalls and bubble jets and fun little spots where you can duck under bridges and peer through to the next pool. There’s also a kids’ play area with heated water, where we shoot each other with warm jets from all manner of sprayers and hoses, and then hide out in a protected tunnel until a big bucket of water overhead fills and spills.

Feeling very refreshed from the hot pools, we take a cab into town in search of dinner - we just have the cabbie drop us on the main strip of restaurants along the lakefront and we wander until we find something tasty. We end up on the patio at Dixie Brown’s, which has a large, eclectic menu and cozy blankets to wrap up in as the sun goes down. We all enjoy a delicious dinner and the boys finish up with milkshakes - Erik downs his with an air of utter determination. :) We cab it back to the RV park and take a few minutes to lie on the picnic tables admiring the unfamiliar constellations before we tuck into our cozy beds.

Milkshakes are serious business.