Getting into hot water

15 – 18 November, 2023

Taupo – Tirau – Thames (on Coromandel)

We visited Lake Taupo on our previous trip to NZ in 2020, briefly for a lunch stop. This time we stayed for two nights, but unfortunately most of our stay in this sublime place was hampered by heavy rain. On our first day, while waiting for our son David, daughter-in-law Kim, and two little grandchildren to arrive from their home in Wellington, we walked the lakeside in sunny weather witnessing the striking snow gullies on Rapanui, on the far side of this large crater lake (approximately 30 by 20 miles). We also discovered for ourselves the astonishing hot pools that seep onto the black volcanic lakeside beaches. The volcanic eruption which created Lake Taupo was the global largest in the past 70,000 years, and the final one in c. AD 250 was recorded as a “red sky” event in both Roman and Chinese records.

Taupo itself is a pleasant tourist destination, spaciously laid out with the slightly old-fashioned aspect we have come to expect of New Zealand. We stayed at the immaculate Phoenix Thermal Resort, which afforded an enclosed and very beautiful rose garden. It’s an excellent choice of reasonably-priced family accommodation, in two-storey chalets grouped round the garden.

Our plans for the following day were rather stymied by a medical emergency. Husband Peter woke with a goose-egg sized bursa on his elbow, and then realised his hands, feet and lower legs were all badly swollen. As this was day 5 after 33 hours of long-haul flight, we took ourselves off to the Taupo hospital. There we had excellent care and endless cups of tea, albeit a little slow when four emergencies came in after us more deserving of urgent attention. I can’t fault the attention Peter had, and we emerged at lunch-time relieved to find it was nothing more than delayed fluid retention from the flight. Ultrasound had thankfully revealed no DVT. And thanks also to the reciprocal scheme with our NHS, it cost us not a penny. The A&E nurse who provided continuity while were triaged and seen by the doctor was from Sheffield. She asked how things were in the UK, and we had to admit she had made the right choice 23 years ago.

So with what was left of our foreshortened afternoon, we stayed close to home and just visited the geothermal open air hot pools at the De Brett Taupo Hilton. They were so hot we only lasted half an hour or so in the water. The ladies’ changing room was on the dodgy side of amusing: a mere open-sided shed, with frisky short curtains that waltzed in the steady breeze to offer interesting views to passers-by. I changed very quickly.

Back at base we ate take-away curry, and collapsed into bed at the same time as the children (aged three and one). Exhausting, this grandparenting business.

Tirau to Thames

Under lowering skies turning to heavy rain, we headed towards the Coromandel peninsula, pausing at Tirau for lunch. Tirau has an unusual claim to fame. It can rightly say it is the corrugated animal capital of the world. (There are a lot of world capitals in NZ, even more than in Australia.) Our grandson was impressed with the iron dog and sheep. I shopped for books and snacks, and we persevered on through the deluge. By late afternoon we arrived in Thames, a decent-sized town which surprised us with being dead as a dodo on a Saturday evening. We left our spacious but mosquito-ridden apartment at Sunset Motel in search of a child-friendly restaurant. Kiwis eat early, so we were out before six. Even so, we found only one place to eat, the local Thai restaurant on Pollen Street. Every other resident of the town, both temporary and permanent, had arrived before us. We were lucky to get a table for six. The children were restless and a little on the crabby side, so we took it in turns to eat each others’ food while it was hot, and decamped hastily. Home for jigsaws, showers and another early night. Maybe it won’t rain tomorrow.

Another thing…

In the museum at Hamilton, we discovered that New Zealand flax, used by the Maori to weave cloths, mats, baskets, all sorts of domestic items, is not what Europeans call flax at all. It is a totally unrelated plant, phormium tenax, serving the same ecological niche. Fancy that.

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