Heading to Taupo

Goodbye Tauranga

Time has been flying on our trip. We said goodbye to our lovely barn loft, and now we are off to Taupo. 

On the way to Taupo, we will be stopping at a wine tasting room at the top of a mountain. We have to take a gondola up to Volcanic Hills winery. The road was winding and the scenery was breathtaking. We saw rolling green hills dotted  with sheep and cows and wildflowers by the hundreds. 

Started to get hungry before we hit the winery so we stopped in the town of Ngongohata and had breakfast at a delightful place called Cafe Dynasti. It was decorated with beautiful artwork and positive messages.

We took the advice of the lady at the counter and I ordered a ham and cheese pie.  It had layers of not only ham and cheese but also spinach, tomato, and crispy phylo dough. Yum! David’s was good, but not as good as mine! 

Our stomachs were happy and we were ready to try some wine. The location was only about five minutes past our restaurant, and we made it there easily. Took the gondola up to the top, which afforded us amazing views of the lake and neighboring towns and mountains. I saw four deer and three alpacas on our trip up. We are lucky enough to walk right into the wine tasting and had a window seat as we were treated to some lovely New Zealand wines. Another American couple came in right before we started our session our wine server, Elizabeth combined our group. We had a lovely wine time tasting five New Zealand wines. David’s favorite was the Chardonnay and mine was the Pinot Noir. We compromised and bought a bottle of the Syrah. 

Next stop is our Airbnb in Taupo…or not! David does a wonderful job of giving us impromptu side trips. He’ll say let’s turn here and we do. I love the spontaneity of it and we have had some wonderful experiences because of it. This stop ended up being an incredible unplanned addition to our itinerary. We ended up in Haku Falls. Incredible glacier blue waters flowing at amazing speeds down the mountain. 

Our timing was impeccable as we saw three men carrying kayaks up the path. Judging by how fast the water was going below us we highly doubted they would be on that part of the falls. We walked further down the path nearing the end of the waterfall. When all of a sudden, Spies, one of the kayakers shooting over the edge of the bottom of the waterfall! He bounced up and dis appeared in the water. As we watched two other kayakers flew across the end and safely made it past the falls. It was a beyond incredible sight!

Hello Taupō!

Our Airbnb was literally five minutes away. We pulled up just passed 4 PM. Our rental sits looking over a beautiful boat harbor on Lake Taupo. We took our luggage inside and rested for a bit before we headed chose a good restaurant for dinner and set out again. 

The center of the town of topo was less than 10 minutes away. We parked right by Lake Taupo, which is the largest lake in New Zealand. It is actually the caldera of a an extinct volcano. There were a few small sailboats on the blue water. Waterside restaurant was where we ended up. It had the best view of the lake and many outside tables were available. David ordered the spicy margarita while I got a glass of New Zealand Pinot noir. 

Special of the day was beef rump, and french fries which David got and I chose cheese, risotto, balls, and jalapeño poppers. David shared his lovely rump steak, which was delicious. Walked along the boardwalk after dinner and enjoyed the sunny late afternoon breeze. 

Headed back to the house for me to work on the blog and David to read. Will probably watch a movie and hope to get a good nights sleep before we fly to the south Island and Christ church tomorrow.