Beautiful Huka Falls and other interesting places: Taupo, Napier, Wellington

After Rotorua we continued our road trip towards Taupo. We had a few places where we wanted to stop along the way. First one was Huka falls. Oh my! The river and the fall were stunning! The color was mesmerizing and brought tears to Edda’s eyes. 😍 We walked around and just enjoyed the view. We saw also two people going down the fall with kayaks. It was interesting! The river continues towards Taupo and is crystal-clear along the way. We stopped along the way to see the water and there were many ducks that hoped that we would have something to eat with us. Unfortunately, we didn’t. One of the ducks had found an apple and tried to eat it but it is extremely difficult to catch an apple in the water with a beak. Edda took the apple and broke it into parts to make it easier to the ducks. Another place we visited was natural hot springs in Taupo. There were quite many people so we decided first to walk around a bit. We saw some exercising supplies such as different bars. We played around for a while and then Edda stretched a bit while Markus went for a run. After that we went to the hot springs. The water was really hot! But since it then mixed up with cold water from a river, one could choose what temperature one wanted and sit in different areas. It was lovely!

How beautiful is that color?!

There was not a single affordable place to stay in Taupo, so it was again time to sleep in our teeny tiny car. Jiihaa! Before that we went for a good dinner at an Indian restaurant (Master of India) so we could cope with the night in our car. 😆 The restaurant was nice and food was good!

Master of India 

We had thought we would go and do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing track near Lake Taupo. We hadn’t had enough time to look much for the details regarding the hike. We arrived at the place and there were load’s of cars. Edda went to ask a parking responsible person about the track. He told it would be around 6,5 - 8 hours to hike and that it would cost 30 NZD per person to get a shuttle from the parking lot to the starting point. From there one would then hike to the starting point. We had to drive to Napier afterwards so we felt that a possible 8-hour hike (it usually takes long for us since we take many photos 😉) was too much. So, unfortunately, since we hadn’t prepared ourselves (we didn’t even have enough water bottles…), we skipped this hike and drove to Napier instead. Along the way, we stopped in few places again. First at Lake Taupo where Markus made friends with some black swans. 😊 Then we found a waterfall and stretched our legs there for a while. Luckily we had a nice weather!

Markus with black swans

Finally we made it to Napier, which is also called the art deco capital of NZ. This is because the city was destroyed in 1931 earthquake and the city was built again after that and represent that time. There is even an art deco weekend every year, but we missed it this time. Markus has seen it six years ago 😊 That is when only old cars are allowed on some streets and people dress themselves in old clothes. We did see some old cars, though! Actually, not doing the hike turned out to be a good thing as regards accommodation. We hadn’t found any accommodation under 150€/night/room online so we had to drive to Napier and try to find a room there. When we arrived to the city, all hostels/hotels/motels had ‘no vacancy’ signs out. Damn. We went to ask one place but they were fully booked. Then we went to Toad Hall Backpackers and they had one room left. That was ours!

During our time in Napier we mainly walked around. We found a minigolf place and played there for a while. Markus won the first round and Edda the second. Edda even got three hole-in-ones! One day it was really warm and sunny so we went to the beach. There were not too many people and you could not hear the sounds of the city at all, which was great. The beach itself is interesting - it is only round stones. It was actually quite nice to lay on those stones because they were warm and you didn’t get sand everywhere 😜

Street view in Napier 

Park in Napier

Hmmm, how shall I do this...

Stony beach 😆 

NZ celebrated Waitangi day during our stay in Napier and we drove to Clive to see some celebrations. There was a small market and some music and other activities. We were not too impressed with the market or their activities but were glad we happened to be there when a local drumming group played for one hour. They played like they do in Salvador, Brazil - as we mentioned in this post.

Clive market 

From Napier we drove to NZ’s capital, Wellington. On our way we saw a sign of a lavender farm. Edda had always wanted to visit one so we drove there. During our drive from Napier to this farm, outside temperature had dropped from 29c to 16c! You can imagine how cold it was when we came out from our car in our flip flops, shorts and t-shirts! 😝 We went to see the people working at the farm. They laughed a bit when they saw what we were wearing and said “they think it’s summer here”. We were lucky to arrive just when they were extracting lavender water and lavender oil from their harvest. We really like the smell of lavender but the smell of lavender water and oil when it’s being processed was not very nice - it stuck into our noses for at least a day and it was quite bitter somehow.

We also got a tour from one of their employees. There was a stream, bamboos, etc. It looked like we just popped into a jungle. It was very nice! We even saw lavender-colored chicken and they had trees that grew walnuts, olives, apples, oranges, etc. That’s so unfair! Why can’t we have all the variety in Finland as well? 😛

Extracting lavender oil and lavender water

Such a lovely smell!

Chicken, rooster, chicken, rooster, chicken. All in nice order 😆

Stream at lavender farm

A walnut tree

We also stopped at a chocolate factory. This was more for Markus 😉 There was a person working over there who was really lovely and friendly. She was interested in Finland and gave us free samples etc. We bought some chocolates and left happy 😛

Happy customer

So, we finally made it to Wellington. It wasn’t easy to find accommodation even close to the center. But since we have a car, it didn’t matter if we had our room a bit further away. We found a room through Airbnb and it was really nice. As you can see from our pictures below, the view was breathtaking. Our host, Aida was lovely and helped us with every question we had. We stayed there for two nights and really enjoyed it!

Probably the most interesting parking spot we have ever had!

On our first night we went for dinner in a Malaysian restaurant that we found on Lonely Planet, called Little Penang. The food was delicious and the portions were big 😛 The restaurant was also very popular. We had met a woman called Judith in Napier and she had also traveled to Wellington on the same day as we. We met her in the evening for some coffee and drinks afterwards. It was interesting to hear about work life in The Netherlands and how business cultures differ in our countries. The places we went to were nice, especially the beer/wine place that Markus found was very cozy, called Little BeerQuarter.

Judith and Edda enjoying treats at a café

Little Beer Quarter was very cozy 

We also visited Te Papa museum in the heart of Wellington. It is a museum with many different exhibitions about New Zealand and its history, nature, people, animals, etc. There is so much information that it’s impossible to see and read everything. The museum is free, which was quite interesting, considering how big it was and how much work was put into all the different exhibitions.

Te Papa

Images that show how the amount of forest has declined during the years...

Then it was time to say bye bye to North island and take a very expensive ferry to South island. BUT, luckily we hadn´t booked it earlier! Aida told us that the prices usually go down just few days before departure if there are many places left. We had checked about one week before departure and then 2 people and 1 car was around 350 NZD (~260 €). We booked the tickets one day before and they were 280 NZD, which was much better (even though still a lot!!!) The ferry took around 3,5 hours to Picton and we had nice views during our journey. 😊

Wellington