Australasia: Day 1 Auckland to Taupo/Turangi

The Garytales are back.

I just arrived from SFO to Auckland, to a damp raining humidy masking the southern stars I yearn to see again. Thanks to it being fall in New Zealand, they had yet to start daylight savings time and so I arrived at 4:50am. I chilled in the airport until my 8:00am flight to Lake Taupo. As the plane descended, I was treated to awesome blue lake about 1/4 the size of Tahoe with towns set on the northeast and southeast corners. The aiport is located about 8km south of Taupo town and I had to take a shuttle ($15.00NZ) to the Intercity bus station.

While there, I called up one of the local white water rafting companies, tongariro river rafting and they had a trip that would be pick me up from the local i-site information both at 1pm, bypassing the need for me to go to Turangi first. The i-sites are awesome centers that help you book everything from buses to hostels to adventure trips. New Zealand is definately set up for backpackers.
I had some time to waste in Taupo Township and decided to go see Craters of the Moon.



Close to Taupo and accessible off SH1, Craters of the Moon is an active geothermal field. The terrain is filled with exposed steam vents and is constantly shifting, collapsing and reforming, giving an uninhabited appearance. Thermal mud pools bubble away and plants not normally native to our area, thrive in this hot and partly noxious environment. As a result of utilising the underground thermal energy in the Wairakei Valley, the Craters of the Moon started to appear from 1950. This area used to contain light geothermal activity until the construction of Wairakei Geothermal Power Station, approximately 2000 metres north of the field. The power station lowered underground water levels and the fumaroles and mud pools became more active. There was less water to cool the magma and the ground cavity which was previously full of water is now full of high pressure sulphurous steam. It is a forbidding volcanic example of the inner earths fiery inferno bursting forth. a geothermal vallery of underground geysers and boiling mud pools.