Lake Taupo weekend: 6~Hatepe sunsets and snippets from the drive home
Each night at Hatepe I made the 150m trek down to the lake for sunset watch. This consisted of sitting and waiting and watching followed by a sudden flurry of snapping (interspersed with furious pacing forwards, backwards, sideways).
I don’t often get to see the sunset in a decent fashion against a far horizon, so I was keen to eke out what I could.
Go-home day rolled around much too quickly and it was a genuine coincidence that I had a bad headache when time came to clean the bach, leaving Mike to do much of it. (He did a great job.)
We’ll definitely return. There’s been talk of doing the Tongariro Crossing next summer and Hatepe would be a great base for that.
But for now we pointed the car back south, first making a stop near Turangi to procure caffeine to help ease my groggy head. It was a beautiful day which lent itself to a few other stops as well.
Another bluebird day on the Desert Rd
We pulled off to our mountain photo-op stop place again
Mount Ngauruhoe
The Rangipo Desert
The Taihape gumboot! Taihape is known for an annual gumboot throwing contest. Corrugated iron art pops up in a few central North Island towns.
The mild downer upon returning was channelled into planning our US trip later in the year. More on that in a few weeks!
tall tales 
Those sunset’s are what dreams are made of
They’re not the best sunsets in the history of the world but I was pleased to see them – thanks Dallas!
I’d say you eked out some pretty stunning photos, Hayley — Can’t wait to hear about your US plans!
Thanks muchly Steph. We can’t wait to get Stateside!
Beautiful sunsets….it’s so worth it to make the time to see them. Especially when you have such stunning scenery to see them against 🙂
Thank you Ali. Sunsets above water are one of those great combos eh.
I admire Your sunset photos – lovely. Huge Taihape gumboot was nice surprise.
It adds character doesn’t it. Further north is Tirau, a small town which really owns the corrugated iron art concept including the visitor centre which is modelled like a sheepdog 🙂 . Thanks Matti.
What a beautiful sunset!
Nice set of posts about Taupo. I am heading off there at the end of the month and enjoyed your tips/photos on what to do in the area.
Many thanks. Have a great time on your visit, don’t forget to pack lots of warm layers! Winter may make the geothermal areas even more appealing 🙂