This past weekend we rented a car and headed up to beautiful Lake Taupo. Unfortunately we got there and thanks to all the rain we got dreary Lake Taupo instead. After a couple road bumps a long the way (both literal and figurative) we made into town and got settled in our hostel. Turns out it was actually a really nice hostel and we filled up most of our room. We had a relaxed night in the hostel bar and watching movies and resting up for morning hikes. 
Unfortunately the next morning was rainy and cold and did not look like good hiking weather at all. We somehow managed to be happy campers (mainly because we weren't actually camping) and got up early and headed to the craters of the moon. Now the area around Taupo was used for a lot of the Mordor and Mount Doom scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies so it turns out a cold dreary day was perfect for the kind of tragic, creepy beauty of the area. I know I'm starting to sound like a brochure but it really was fantastic. It looked like part lord of the rings, part some distant planet (or moon mayhaps) part land before time where a triceratops would fit right in.
After that we headed to the hot springs and got a private bath. It smelled a little funny (plenty of sulfur) but it felt amazing. And with great luck we were headed from the main pool to our private pool right as a little kid pooped his swimmers so at least one disaster was narrowly avoided.
The next morning we wanted to head to see the Maori carvings out by the lake. Unfortunately you can only get there by water so we decided to take the sail boat and once again the bad weather worked in our favor. We got a couple sprinkles on the way out but with the gloomy morning we had the whole boat to ourselves. He also kept us out for an extra half hour, threw in a glass of wine for each of us, and I got to swim up to the carvings. The day was cool and the water was colder but I was of course the first to jump in and make my way to shore. I mean when else in my life am I going to get a chance to swim in lake Taupo?
From there on out the day made a valiant effort and being nice and we got great views of the lake, the falls,and the city. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to do all we wanted so we are already planning a trip for later in the semester to head up north and stop in for a bit, to climb Mount Doom and such.
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