Kia Ora or hello New Zealand! We arrived here late Thursday night. The bags are unpacked, the phones and internet are connected (as you can see), and we’ve located the grocery store, a church and a place for Frank to swim.
Our home for the month is the charming “Little Black Bach” (pronounced “batch”). Bachs are small holiday homes. This one is in Wharewaka, a small suburb overlooking Lake Taupo — a whole different world after the hustle and bustle of Melbourne!
Lake Taupo is in the middle of the North Island. It is New Zealand’s largest lake — 120 miles around, and was formed by debris descending and creating a hole after one of the earth’s most intense volcanic eruptions! We can see the lake from our place and can walk to the edge in about 3 minutes. The nearest city is Taupo, which is ten minutes away by car. It has a population of 23,000 people and pretty much everything we need.
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- Kia Ora New Zealand!
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- We landed in Auckland and drove 3-1/2 hours.
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- We will spend a month in Wharewaka, 5 minutes south of Taupo.
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- Our “Little Black Bach”
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- The view from our porch…
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- of Lake Taupo.
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- It’s huge, about 120 miles around…
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- The lake was formed by descending volcanic material after an eruption that was 100x greater than Mt St. Helens.
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- The area surrounding us is rolling hills and then the mountains.
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- Lots of space for sheep (39 million sheep equating to ten per person!)…
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- …and cattle.
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- We are chasing the end of spring as we travel south…
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- and again, just beautiful!
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- These yellow flowers are blooming everywhere.
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- I noticed this in Australia, too. The webs are kind of weird – random and relaxed, kind of like I expect this leg of the trip to be!
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- The CBD of Taupo is a little smaller than Melbourne’s(!) but has everything we will need for a relaxing month exploring New Zealand’s North Island.
Waltzing Wanderers 