Jun 22
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).
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After the hot walk around Craters of the Moon the lake beckoned. We chose a spot to park along the busy lakefront in town and then found some shade to flop under. Rather, the boys dumped bags and scuttled off down to the water, leaving me to do the flopping.
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Much as we were settling into life-by-the-lake, we had planned a day trip to Taupo about 20 minutes away.
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We intended to take full advantage of the lake being on our doorstep and made the 300m round trip numerous times each day.
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Hatepe is normally somewhere you race (er, drive) past on your way north or south, being one of a few small settlements along the eastern shore of Lake Taupo. Today though we would be turning off into Hatepe for the first time. Somewhere waiting for us was our holiday bach for the next three nights.
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This year we had an iconic summer like the kind I remember well from my childhood. Brilliantly fine stretches of weather prevailed, putting the nation in a good mood and giving visiting guests the impression that this was nothing unusual. (If anything we had too much of a good thing and much of the country was later declared in drought.)
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