Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

Lake Taupo - New Zealand
Round The World Trip Journal

(30th - 31st May) Lake Taupo & Waitomo Caves
We drove half hour south of Rororua to Taupo on the northern shore of Lake Taupo and checked into a motel right on the lakeside. Despite it being very cold we went paddling in the lake and found it to be quite warm underfoot from the volcanic activity below. We buried our toes in the warm black stones and watched a fantastic sunset across the lake. The following morning, however, the lake was covered in thick cloud. We found a beach of pumice stone and Mike found it hugely entertaining to throw big pieces in and then watch them float – bizarre! As we climbed up out of the valley into the mountains we suddenly broke through the cloud and came to a viewpoint that looked over the big volcanic national park. We were so taken aback by the view – it was stunning and we stood transfixed whilst listening to the strange song of the Tui bird (it has pom poms under its beak!). Driving back westwards towards Auckland we stopped at the Waitomo Caves where we went down into the caves and did a boat trip through the dark to see the hundreds of thousands of gloworms up on the ceiling of the cave. Despite the fact we only had a short time in New Zealand, we really enjoyed it here. The scenery is totally awesome and breathtaking at times. You will never have seen so much greenery in your life. Everything is green: the mountains are covered in trees, the rolling hills are lush with grass and it is picture perfect. Sheep everywhere and hardly any development at all. You can really get away from it all here. We'd love to come back again when its warmer! And then we were off back to Auckland to stay near the airport ready to fly out to Tahiti.