The Craters of The Moon - in Video

Here is the video from the trip... so hard to capture it, it really is one of those place you just have to experience for yourself.

The Craters of The Moon

Near Taupo is a venue called the Craters of the Moon Geothermal Walk.

It's downright amazing!

Firstly, it's cheap to go, for the 6 of us was around $20.00 Kiwi.

Secondly, it's an experience you cannot pass up, walking around in the belly of a mountain belching forward steam and hot gasses.

Thirdly, see point number two :)

The walk was amazing, along boardwalks and graveled pathways around the valley, we took around an hour, just gawking at it all and trying to take it all in. I have never seen anything like it anywhere else. The kids were amazed as well, it's just fascinating.

It's so hard to take photos of it all, so I have done another video to share, and that will be in the next post.

When walking around, they say to stick to the pathways for safety, and have built lookouts around the walk above craters so you can get a view.

Even so, the edges crumble from time to time, and even the signs can fall in (Danger. Do Not Enter)

The vegetation is more lush, from the heat and the steam.

Simply an amazing place, and one you must visit if in the area.

A Day at the Snowfields - in Video

Just a quick video of the still shots from the day, and a little video. I thought it would be a good way to share them :)

To the Snow!!

So we have our toboggans, our snow jackets, gumboots and snow gloves. Ready for the snow for the first time for the kids, and they are quite excited.

This is the kids on the way to the snow.

Jono with a Knee Rug and his Gloves

Daniel and Sarah with their Gloves

 This is the views going up the mountain.

Overlooking Lake Taupo

The further up the mountain we went, the more the climate changed and the trees and plants with it. They became more stunted, less green, more brown, like with any mountain, there's less air, so the plants have to adapt.

The Changing Vegetation.

 As we were driving up from Taupo side, through a few mountains first with winding roads, and not being sure exactly where the snowfields were, it seemed a long time until we finally saw a small part of a snow capped mountain.

I can see the Snow!!

 Then suddenly we drove around a corner and there it was! Majestic, larger than life, in your face... stunning!

Taken through rain-speckled windscreen

Here's a clearer pic.

A Wonderful Sight!

We spent around 5 hours up on the mountain, and rode a chair lift to the section in Happy Valley for beginners and toboggans. The kids were really amazed by it all, and Daniel even brought a Snowball back with us, which we put in the freezer in the hotel overnight.

The rest of the day I have in video and will put up in the next post... but here's some pics of the kids on the way down the mountain again :)

Jono not quite asleep, not quite awake.

Daniel and Sarah, definitely asleep :)

A wonderful way to see snow for the first time, so glad I took the advice of our friends. Thanks Scott and Anna!! Next time we will check out Snowplanet :)

Lake Taupo

We arrived at our hotel at Taupo at night-time, so had no idea what the are consisted of. We were one street back from the lake with a view of it, and the next morning were just amazed at what there was in front of us.

The Lake is HUUUUUGE!! 193 kilometres around the circumference, and so cold! We went to the ski hire shop to get some jackets and toboggans for the snow and it was 4 degrees... yet the locals don't feel it.

The guy serving us in the ski shop had t-shirt and jeans on... and a beanie. I have a new love and respect for beanie wearers here, and have bought a fair share of them already :)

We stopped at a couple of spots around the lake to see it and all jumped out of the car for a look.

Jono of course had to get as close to the water as possible... no he didn't fall in. (Thank goodness)

We also found pumice stones, heaps of them. Every beach on the edge of the lake has them, from the volcanic explosion that started the lake.

Lake Taupo is also full of Trout! Placed into the lake from settlers and the trout loved it, and grew. It was not unusual for people to bring home a catch of of 20-30 fish or more in a day.

These days there are lots of extreme activities around the lake, bungy, rapids, jetboats as well as just interesting ones - there was a golf platform near our hotel, and the aim was to tee off and get a hole-in-one on the floating platform water. There's also lots of picnic spots, but I think in winter it's too cold to make use of them .

There was also seagull in the middle of the lake... we are a fair way inland silly seagull, he looked at home and I'm sure had plenty of food.

It was an amazing sight on the way to the snow for the day.

How to Pronounce...

So far I have found there are many different ways of saying certain words, largely dependent on the thickness of the accent of the person talking, and how close to a traditional Maori background they are.

I am also already being affected by the accent and losing my Aussie 'strine' as my Mum likes to call it.

Today's words: Noel Leeming

It's a shop, much like a JB Hi-Fi or a Harvey Norman, probably most similar to a Clive Peeters in Australia.

At first glance I thought the second word was Lemming - like those rats that faithfully follow each other off cliff faces and such - and I though "How unfortunate", this was also before I found out what it sold.

Then I had my education on the pronunciation. Before I go on, pronounce it yourself, out loud... and see how well you go.

I was on the phone to someone who had a rather pronounced accent, but only on some words. She was telling me I could go to this place "No-eeeming" and I had no clue what they were talking about. I explained I was new to the country and didn't know what it was.. was it a shop? They told me it was and even the second pronunciation of "Knowlleeeeeming" didn't help me much.

It was a few days later before I figured out what they had said and devised the formula for the correct pronunciation of these words.

1) If there is a double consonant, even if it's two seperate words, they must be run together to make one extended word.
2) If there is 2 'e's together, they must be multiplied by 2 and a half to equal 5 'e's when spoken.
3) If at all possible, make the consonant's almost silent when being said, so there is only a hint they were even there.

Practice at home, and you too can sound like a Keywê!

Next week's lesson: How to pronounce Onehunga

Trip to Taupo

We were planning to take the kids to the snow, and thought it easiest to go to Snowplanet. It's not far from home, it's indoors so there is no weather issues, and if we get too cold we can step outside to warm up.

Then some friends suggested we take the kids to see the snow on a real mountain, to experience it naturally, as there is nothing else like it. We decided this was worthwhile doing so we booked 2 nights in Taupo and headed off for a few days.

The whole trip was fantastic, starting with the drive there. Everything is so green!! After being in a drought restricted area in Australia, it was such an amazing change.

The following photos are taken from a car, on a highway, so please excuse the bits of blur and occasional lack of focus, but you'll get the general gist.

The Green Rolling Hills

They have trains here too!

and plenty of Cows...

The train was a huuuge freight train, lots of cars on it, and going a fair rate of knots. Great name for it - Kiwi rail, many things over here have the Kiwi name in them. The other interesting thing on our travels was the large amount of cows, compared to the lacking amount of sheep... and I'm not saying any more on that.

Rainy Days and Fiery Nights

The land of the long white cloud definitely lives up to it's name. There is often cloud around, which we have been experiencing in lots of rainy days.

In fact, we should be getting around 20 days of rain this month... and the sunlight hours per year is around 2093 hours... yes they measure it in hours, not days.

In this, we end up with some amazing weather patterns. These next images are taken from our balcony. The first photos are around midday on a day where a thick fog hung around all morning. Of course, I didn't open the door for these shots... waaaay too cold outside!

The next pictures are just one of the amazing sunsets that we have seen. The clouds often hang them selves on the horizon, and the sun peeks underneath as it sets, throwing a wave of fire on the underside of the clouds. Of course it better in person, but its still pretty neat.

A Timber house with a fireplace

There are houses over here that we have not seen before, to my knowledge they don't exist in Australia, at least not in Queensland as the climate is so different and they really are not needed. The home is called a lockwood. They are built in a fashion that literally every piece of timber 'locks' into the next, they are built without nails and are incredibly sturdy.

The kitchen, and the timber... oh, the timber

Ours is around 30 years old and still going strong. When this one was built they left a lot (all) of the interior timber exposed. It got laquered, but not painted or tinted, so on every wall, and every ceiling, of every room on the entire top storey, there is timber. Much like this...


It's a little overwhelming.

So I debate daily, should I paint, should I plasterboard (Gib to the locals), should I put a tinted varnish over what's currently there.. or should I just leave it as is?

The lounge... also timber, & the fireplace with a timber safety guard

I think I'm ok with leaving the roof, but I think I want to change the walls... and update the kitchen... and rip up the carpet, and the broken old tiles... and perhaps change the shower heads, but they are a whole other story.

In the meantime, we also have a fireplace, which seeing as we have arrived in winter we sooooo appreciate, we have it on pretty much every night and bought 5 cubic metres of firewood which will hopefully last us two winters. If not, I 'spose we can always start burning the house ;)

The size of the house is fantastic, we have a lot of room to move and options for renovating. We also have wonderful views over the valley and get simply amazing sunsets. It's nice to be high on a hill with views, even if it's not of the harbour itself... and on a clear day, we can see the skytower!