Craters of the Moon & Taupo & Ngātoroirangi Mine Bay Māori Rock Carvings

Merry Christmas to you all! 

I am currently sitting at work before my first tour, writing a little report about my visit to Taupo. I spent one of my weekends here in September and made several different stops. These stops were:

-> Craters of the Moon - Geothermal Park 

-> Spa visit at the geothermal baths

-> Catamaran ride over Lake Taupo with the Ngātoroirangi Mine Bay Māori Rock Carvings

-> Dinner at the coolest McDonald's in the world

My first stop was the Craters of the Moon. A surreal landscape characterized by geothermal activity - a landscape that looks like it's from another planet. For example, the moon, but I have to say that the colors reminded me more of a visit to Mars than anything else. 

An impressive landscape that was very well developed, making it easy for me to stroll along the paths and admire the colors. 

And because strolling is so exciting and exhausting, I decided to head to the spa afterwards. Pretty cool, since the spas here utilize the geothermal springs for warmth and water, which is very good for the skin. 

I especially found it cool that it was built right in the New Zealand bush, so a Tui was cheerfully chirping while I sat in the spa reading.

At the end of the day, I went to what is probably the coolest McDonald's in the world, as it has its own airplane where you can eat. 

The next day, after some time, I went back on a boat and took a catamaran ride over Lake Taupo. Super cool, as it was still the off-season and I was on a boat for 40 people with only 2 others. Additionally, I could also feed ducks in flight from the boat, which was really really cool and something I really enjoyed. A highlight of the entire trip was that the endpoint was the Māori carvings left on the shore. Since there was no written form of communication in ancient times, the Māori used symbols and pictures for communication. Extremely impressive!

And with that, two more days were over, and it was back to work!

Until the next post,
Yours, Britta