New Zealand -1500 miles on foot through- The Land Of The Long White Cloud

Taupo and the Desert Road

It was Monday 30th March and I was playing catch up.  I was a week behind schedule as I walked out of Rotorua.  The Scholastic Website would go live in just a few hours.  From Rotorua, I had sent the photographs from the trip to White Island volcano.  The deadline for the volcano text was two days away.  If I could make it to Taupo in the next two days, I would just make the deadline.

It was 2.00 pm by the time I started wlking out of Rotorua.  After the week of visiting the volcanic area, and Minginui, I was feeling out of shape and lazy.  Fortunately the sun shone and it was only twenty miles to Waiotapu.  As I walked, my shoulders ached from the weight of the pack and my legs complained.  I moved through an area of trees that been planted on the outskirts of Rotorua to stop soil erosion.  At a couple of points, I felt the road lurch beneath me and presumed it was due to more earth tremors.  A cutting by the roadside showed rolling layers of strata, caused by a shockwave from an earthquake many thousands of years ago.

It was 8.40 pm when I reached the turn-off for Murupara.  Lights marked the split in the road.  A sign said 'Taupo 56 km'.  Just down the road was a Rest Area, with a couple of benches and some welcoming grass.  In the gathering gloom, I snuck into the Rest Area and put up my tent, close to one of the wooden benches.

Inside the tent it was chill, but I started to eat some chocolate bars.  Lights from a car shone through the fabric of the tent.  I hoped it wasn't the police come to move me on.  The car pulled up outside, but some distance from the tent.  I heard some coughing, but the person with the cough didn't come near my tent.  After a few minutes the car drove off.  I cleaned my teeth, spitting the leftover toothpast out of the unzipped tent, and went to sleep.

Waking before 7.00 am, I packed up in the morning mist, with my coat on.  In no time, I was walking down the road once more.  Waiotapu was just a little way ahead.  Steam rose from the side of Rainbow Mountain, which was red on one side, but mostly covered in dark green vegetation from where I looked at it.  At the turn off for Waiotapu Valley was a rough-looking tavern and tearoom.  For me, it meant breakfast.  A gruff man with grey hair served me cheeseburger, chips side salad, orange juice and coffee.  The only other people in the tearoom were a loud American man, and what I took to be his elderly mother, who was giving the tearoom owner a hard time about something or other.  The cafe owner gave the American a hard time in return, and their conversation ended with some joking around about Americans ordering gas.  The Americans left and I was glad of some peace and quiet.

By 9.30 am, I had finished my breakfast, got the cafe owner to fill my water bottle and cleaned my teeth in the cafe restrooms.  Ahead was a long day to reachTaupo.  At Reparoa there was a dairy, where I bought a chicken roll, donut and strawberry milkshake.  At Golden Springs there was another small dairy, where I bought a coke and a Sci-Fi book by Robert Heinlein.  Passing over the broad Waikato River, I read the book as I walked.  The turnoff for Orakei Korako came, and then there was a sign for Ohaaki Geothermal Power Station.  Some workmen were cutting long grass by the roadside and putting it into large green bags.  As I stopped for a rest, a couple of sand flies landed on my hands and began to bite.  It was a sign that it was time to get moving.

All around me were grass-covered hills, between strips of planted pine forest.  Reading the book passed the time, as I walked, but soon darkness came and the book had to be put away.  The night quickly turned cold.  With my coat and headtorch on, I continued to walk.  Up ahead a glow on the horizon showed Wairakei and Taupo.  My headlamp began to fail, but I carried on.  It was around 11.00 pm as I reached Wairakei.  I decided to keep walking to cover the 9 km left to Taupo.

Down a hill, past hissing pipes for a geothermal power station, my feet carried me on automatic.  Clouds of steam billowed and hissed around the huge grey pipes.  I wondered if the steam was supposed to be escaping like that.