We left beautiful Rotorua in bright sunshine and set off to drive to Huka Falls. The falls are on the Waikato River, which flows out of Lake Taupo towards Auckland. On the way to the falls, the river has carved itself a narrow channel through some very hard rock, and as a result, the flow is very fast. Upstream, the water is calm and clear, but as it passes along the narrow rocky channel, it picks up masses of tumbling air bubbles which create the amazing colour, a sort of ice-green, and gives the falls their name, which comes from the Maori word for foam.
The falls themselves are not very high, but they are spectacular because of the power of the flow of water and the wonderful colour.
You can take a jet-boat ride close to the bottom of falls, but boats don't survive going over the falls; not only has the water churned a deep chamber under the falls into which boats and bodies could be swept, the current is very strong and tends to keep things in the chamber under the falls for several days.
The next stop was Lake Taupo, which is the biggest Lake in New Zealand. There are plenty of pleasure craft, as it is very popular for water sports.
In the background of the next photo, you can see in the distance the remains of the snow on the mountains, where there are ski resorts.
After that, it was quite a long drive to Napier. We drove along some steep roads through the mountains, then as we approached Hawkes Bay the landscape changed into green folded hills and lots of steep sided hillocks. All the steep slopes are terraced by the feet of grazing animals, either cows or sheep.
Napier is an Art Deco city, having been rebuilt in that style after the 1931 earthquake. However, we had no time to sightsee, we had to have a very quick lunch and be picked up for a wine-tasting.
I can't really think why I went on the wine tasting, I have no liking for any alcohol and I hardly ever drink wine. Also, it seems New Zealanders don't spit the wine out, they swallow it, so people became progressively more tipsy during the afternoon. If I had actually swallowed anything I would have been rolling drunk, so I had to find somewhere to spit it out, but even doing that left me feeling tired and sleepy. We visited 3 wineries. I hated everything we were given to try at the first. There was one wine I quite liked at the second. There were some delightful chocolates there, so I asked to have a chocolate tasting, but got nowhere! It was quite a jolly place, the lady in charge invited us to look at the vines, which were in immaculate rows,
and we could see the tiny developing grapes.
Our driver gave us cheese and biscuits, presumably to mop up all the wine.
I didn't like the wines we were given at the third winery either, but here we also tasted some delicious olive oil, and some very nice vinaigrette dressings. One of the best things was the wine cocktail sorbet - we'll buy some of that once it gets to the UK.
Tomorrow, we are to have a walking tour of Napier, so I hope the rain goes off and it is a bit warmer. Our hotel faces the sea, and we can see enormous breakers, there is quite a wind.
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