Day 41 - Wednesday 14 February 2024
What a fantastic day it has been; a long one to be sure, but one that's been long in the planning.
The plan was to be away from the motel in Taupo at 07:30; I was a tad early as I left at 07:20. I'd worked out some timings, and I had to leave this early to hopefully be in Napier before 18:00.
The first stop was an hour and a half away, a Lord of the Rings location at Tawhai Falls; the first 'Gollum's Pool' of the day. I arrived at 8:45, and was the only car in the car park, so I wandered down the '15 minute return' path and found the most fantastic waterfall. Readers of this blog will have gathered that I like a waterfall; I take after my father in this. The apple hasn't fallen very far from the tree!
A quick stop to grab a photo of the volcano that stood in for Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings, Mount Ngauruhoe. The sun was in the wrong place so it was a bit hazy, but there were no clouds and the weather can change quickly in the mountains so best to get something now; a decision I was to be very pleased about.
The next plan was a hike to (you guessed it) another waterfall; a two hour loop track that had Taranaki Waterfall about half way that I started at 09:20. The hike was marked as 'easy', but I'm not falling for that again; it was mostly uphill across scrubland, and then in woodland following a river up the valley with the mandatory steps thrown in. The waterfall was fantastic, and an unexpected bonus ..... I had wanted to do a hike in Tongariro National Park as I'd not done the Tongariro Alpine Crossing as my body wouldn't have lasted the 19.4km (12 miles).
This turned out to be a good decision as 15 minutes into my hike something gave in my calf, so smaller steps and a slightly slower pace, but I still arrived at the waterfall after 50 minutes.
Up the road from where I was there is a ski resort, so I thought that it'd be rude not to visit; up a steep twisty road and the ski resort came into view. It's not really like anything I've seen in the alps; it's built on a volcano, and the lifts go up over the lava fields ..... I couldn't see where the ski runs were with no snow, but the views down the mountain were exceptional.
My next planned point was 10km away as the crow flies, but a 71km detour around Tongariro National Park to reach; it was the second 'Gollum's pool' and also 'Ithilen'. If you know the films, imagine Gollum chasing a fish in a stream towards a waterfall .... that was filmed here. I didn't get a still shot of that, but it will be in the weekly video. The waterfall is the one where Gollum sits at the bottom of the forbidden pool and sings a song before beating a fish on the rocks and being captured by Faramir.
There was little water coming over this fall into a dark shadowed pool and only a viewpoint was at the top, which was a bit disappointing at the time .... since I've rewatched the scene I can see where it was filmed and it makes more sense.
From here, I had a stop for lunch (well, coffee and a warm Peach and Cream Cheese muffin) before setting the Satnav to my destination for the day and my hotel in Napier. 3 hours 4 minutes was the expected journey time, so SH49 onto SH1, and then a left turn off onto an unnumbered road. A sign said 148km to the next fuel, and I found myself on probably the best bit of road I've ever driven. It was twisty, it was up and down to hilltops and bridges across streams, and the views were absolutely stunning. I had to take special care to concentrate on the road, but had made sure to have my Gopro mounted so that I could capture some of what I was seeing; I was going to do a brief video, but editing it proved difficult and it ended up not being brief, so some screen dumps instead ....
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