Rotorua via Karangahake Gorge & Mount Maunganui

We are now in the midst of the full Labour Day weekend. Compared to before, everything is busier: roads, restaurants, towns and campgrounds.

We started early as we had a fair distance to travel today and wanted to make a couple of stops.

The first stop was in Karangahake Gorge. It’s NZ famous for being an early mining town located in a beautiful and steep gorge.

We hiked along the river and saw the remnants of the old mining settlement and the associated equipment. The highlight of the hike was the old railway tunnel that was used to haul ore to the the processing site. The tunnel is over one half mile long, perfectly straight, a little wet and a lot creepy.

Mount Maunganui is a large mount at the mouth of a river into the sea. The problem was it’s also located in a large beach town. Think of Bishop’s Peak dropped on the edge of San Diego Bay for a visualization: add in Labour Day weekend and you have a very slow moving mess! There was no place to park anywhere near Mount Maunganui.

We took mental pictures, slowly weaved our way back to the highway and headed for Rotorua.

Now concerned that with the long weekend traffic and with having no reservations, Terri started making calls to campgrounds. After a few tries she had success in finding us a spot on Taupō Lake. They had a spot left, no power, but it was spot – we took it.

With a camping spot secured, we set out to explore Taupō. Helen, the campground hostess, gave us a couple of ideas to get started.

First, we went downtown to the free geothermal park with walking trails – cool! Then on to Blue Lake for another hike

Blue Lake was very pretty and the day was warm. We joined the walkers/trekkers in doing the 4 mile walk around the lake. It was warm enough that a few people ventured into the water without wetsuits. Having circumnavigated the lake successfully and enjoying the warm sunshine, we sat on the lawn to watch the lake festivities. While not exceptionally a long walk, we felt parched and decided to have a beer/wine and relax. Please note: we rarely ever have anything to drink until we are set in our campground for the night.

Beverages finished, (almost), and the afternoon waning, it was time to head the 5 miles back to camp. I had finished my beer while on the lawn but Terri had about a inch of wine left in her tumbler and wanted to not waste it. While driving back to camp, the earlier clear road was stop and go(?). We made it around a corner to see a few policemen stopping cars. Uh oh. They would allow three vehicles into their corded off section and three policemen would approach the cars and give what I’m sure was a breathalyzer test. I urged Terri to move her wine from the dashboard cup holder and she quickly stashed the glass in the myriad of things on the floor behind our seats.

It was now our turn in the 3 car queue. I pulled up, stopped, rolled down my window, the officer approached and said, “Good afternoon sir, please hold still and count to five” while holding a small device in front of my face. I finished counting and he asked where we were from and said that he enjoyed that area and loved Big Sur. He looked at his machine and said, “Enjoy New Zealand.”