(written on January 18th from notes taken previously)
Sometime relatively early in the morning, some guys came by, inflated a large river rafting boat, and started walking down the very narrow trail from the parking area all the way down to the river.
Having made that walk myself, I knew how tight it was and how awkward it was. I figured they probably knew where they were going, but just in case, I paused them and warned them about the track.
But one of them had been there before, so it was a known quantity for them.
So off they went. A few minutes later, it dawned on me to offer them help, so I walked down the trail, getting a good ways down before realizing they were far ahead and clearly didn’t need my help.
After walking back up the trail, I walked down to the hot tubs to check my experiment of leaving the drains draining, and was happy to find that my theory was correct–It was best to leave the tubs continually draining, as that both kept the algae from growing, would keep the plastic in tact longer, and was washing down the plant matter that fell/got blown in.
Success! 🎉
Now I just need to send the pictures and information to the local DOC people and write a Google Review.
Once back at my van, I got my trash bag out and did some more extensive trash clean up than I did before. There was a significant amount of trash, mostly bottles, tossed in the bushes. 😕
I spent a good while doing that, filling up a bag, which means I’m going to need to find a recycling center again soon. 😅
I also spent a good bit of time cleaning all the cobwebs out of the long-drop toilet shack. There were so many cobwebs that it’s just… a bit uncomfortable sitting in there. 😅
So I figured I’d make it a little bit nicer for the next people.
I ate breakfast and then headed over to the end of the road because I had heard there was a place to fill up water, so I drove over to the next trail head, saw a sign for water bottle fill up, but after walking down the trail in the direction of the sign for a pretty good ways, I never found any water bottle fill up.
I’m thinking what they were describing was just a spring to fill up from.
But not being sure about it, I didn’t want to guess and end up with little micro critters inside of me. 🙃
Spent some good time doing journal catch up, got a little lost trying to get out of the bush and back to civilization after leaving the area 🙃 (because there was zero reception, and I hadn’t saved a Google map, so I couldn’t see the roads available to me on the map), and thought about chatting with a DOC person about the hot tub stuff I learned but didn’t (I saw a DOC truck in a clearing on one of my wrong turns 🙃), and finally made it out. 🎉
Next stop on my list was Waipunga Falls, on my way to Taupo.
There wasn’t really a trail down to the falls, just a viewpoint parking lot from a good little ways away and a good little ways above it, but it was still beautiful.
Unfortunately, people had dumped trash absolutely everywhere. 😞
Yet another report to the local District Council needed. Ugh. 😕
I made it to Taupo early evening, driving through “downtown” on my way to the unlisted (on CamperMate) campground I’d stayed at before with Chase and the Austrian girls for a few days, back when the earthquake rocked our cars pretty good that first night a few years ago.
Painful time in some ways, but funny how I seem to remember the good and forget the bad.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 