Golfing on Lake Taupo? – Yes, that's possible!

The morning awakens at the Princess Gate Hotel in Rotorua. We are already looking forward to the breakfast that will be served to us today. Expectantly, we enter the breakfast room. Soft music and ambiance, small tables with upholstered chairs, and chandeliers on the ceiling set high expectations.

The buffet is elegantly arranged. A chafing dish with the usual breakfast items like scrambled eggs, sausages, and bacon is available. In addition, there is toast and croissants, orange juice and coffee, and three types of cereals. Pickled fruit and yogurt. Everything in manageable quantities…

We indulge ourselves, as usual, in the muesli offerings. Thorsten treats himself to an English breakfast from the chafing dish.

The breakfast was free for us – however, if we had to pay 30 NZD per person, we would not have been satisfied. The selection could have been larger. Not in terms of quantity, but in terms of variety.

Regardless, we check out and commence our journey. We head south again towards Taupo. Upon arriving in the city, we make our way to the beach promenade. The travel guide mentions that you can attempt a “Hole in One” from the promenade. However, the hole is about 100 meters away on a floating island in Lake Taupo. Here you can rent golf clubs and a basket of golf balls. The price depends on the number of balls you want (I believe you got 25 balls for 25 NZD…). You can then tee off on a synthetic grass green. For every ball that lands on the floating island (you can hear it), you get another ball for free.

The balls that go astray and fall into the water must be collected by someone from the organizer. We see a diver near the island, seemingly retrieving the balls from the bottom.

Several people try their hand at it. Some are good, some less so… It is definitely fun for us to watch and rejoice with those whose balls audibly land on the island.

We continue on to the Huka Falls (Maori for foam). This is not a vertical fall but rather a horizontal one. The water from the Waikato River flows here over a river about 100 meters wide into a