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| Gondola in Rotorua city, for the Luge, bungee jump, sky ride, and a restaurant up top | Lots of great information at the Volcanic Centre. There are also several geothermal power plants around here. | Horace on top of Mt Ruapehu, on a scale map of the area. Mt Ngaruhoe and Lake Taupo in the distance. | You can sit in an earthquake simulator and get bounced around | |||
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| Look closely at the right side of Australia - the fault line runs directly through New Zealand. This whole area is very active - hence Auckland built from volcanos, Rotorua geothermals, etc. | We stopped at the Honey Hive for more local bee hive info | Another fun beehive inside the building to study, with a large tube to the outside for the bees to get in and out | Many different kinds of honey available here, from all the different flowers. They have a free taste testing area - and the different honeys really do taste quite different. | |||
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| Huka Falls is a beautiful area just north of Lake Taupo | Looking upstream. Furthest away, the top of the river is calm blue/green, flowing deep and slow. | Then it hits hard rock that doesn't erode away, so the water is forced into a narrow shallow channel. | Looking downstream. In the foreground it's boiling rapids, then the falls below, and in the distance it calms back down to a serene blue. | |||
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| Walking a little further downstream. Looking upstream to the left, the wild rapids. | Looking down on the falls | Nice pose! | Looking downstream from the falls as the water churns, and in the distance calms down | Further downstream the river settles down | ||
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| the falls | Bottom of the falls with the new camera | |||||
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| In Lake Taupo area for lunch - Subway! Looks like fast food row with KFC, Pizza Hut, etc. | Neat sewer grate - the fish means it goes directly to the lake, no processing, so don't put bad stuff down here | Lake Taupo, just across the street from fast food row. Huge! | This whole lake and the entire area around used to not be here - this is from a huge volcanic erruption centuries ago. | Lake Taupo is the largest lake in all of New Zealand | ||
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| more tame ducks here, expecting to be fed | Don't be stupid | Nice railing along much of the edge | ||||
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| The lake edge is quite a ways above the water | We found steps down to the lake edge | Sue had to walk down and stick a toe in | Water at the edge is sun-warmed and not too cold, but I imagine a few feet in it gets freezing cold | |||
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| Interesting fish where we stopped for lunch - the symbol of the town of Taupo | and with the old camera | Fast food row again - there's even a McDonalds in the distance! | ||||
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| Another fun place! In Rotorua there was a "fat dog" cafe :-) | "All Day Pub Brekky" -- pub breakfast served all day | Sky diver up in the sky | sky diver is just above the trees in the middle | South of Lake Taupo, in the "desert". Looking east, the mountains look just like Colorado. | ||
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| Even the scrub brush looks the same! | But to the north west, this is clearly a volcano (yup still active too). This is Mt Ngaruhoe. | This is the base of Mt Ruapehu, another huge volcano. The entire top is hidden by clouds. In the winter there are 2 ski resorts on it... except in 1995 and '96 when the volcano was errupting again, fortunately small erruptions. | Landmark on State Highway 1 - Cookie Air | This is an old DC-3, now a café. | ||
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| Cookie time!! | Much of the cockpit is still there | History of this particular plane - it flew a lot! | ||||
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| More with the new camera | Bob and Sue were quite enthralled :-) | |||||
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