Orakei Korako

Today's the day .......................... to recommend

Everything that we've done today has been a suggestion of our hosts, Carol and Lawrie.

We have been staying with them in Taupo for the past few days - and we found them online through the website airbnb.com. They have been just wonderful - welcoming us into their home - and as locals, able to give us good advice on the sort of thing that might interest us to do.

So we started off by watching the opening of the dam gates of the Waikato River. When this happens a wall of water is sent surging downstream and turns a dry gorge into a magnificent waterfall before your eyes. It's very impressive and apparently it was used in the latest Hobbit film when Bilbo Baggins rescues the dwarfs from elves by hiding them in barrels which float downstream.

Then we went off to the Orakei Korako Thermal Park to see 'hotsprings, gushing geysers, silica terraces, boiling mud pools and breath-taking natural beauty' which according to the Lonely Planet Guide is 'arguably the best thermal area left in New Zealand'. It was pretty good actually - and not all that busy so you had the chance to see everything easily.

Then we finished up by going to a place out in the country - that you couldn't possibly have found without instructions from someone who knew where it was. It just looked like a clear mountain stream running through a little wooded valley. The difference was that the water was the temperature of a nice warm bath. It felt so peculiar to be sitting there in a pool, enjoying the hot running water!

So - thanks Carol and Lawrie - we've had a lovely day. All your suggestions have been spot on .........................