(written on February 9th from notes taken previously).
Well, according to my maps, I got to the Freedom camping place just a little bit after midnight last night. 🙃
And I wasn’t quick getting going this morning. 😅
I veged out for a little bit, availed myself of the nearby long drop, found that someone had put some sunglasses on the cowling between my hood and windshield 🤔, took a daylight look at the enormous tree (which I found to be hollow inside for a decent ways up 😅), and finally got back on the road.
Stopped for a photo op at Piriaka Lookout–beautiful spot.
As I continued on the drive toward Tongariro, I saw a sign for the Waituhi Scenic Lookout, a narrow, sketchy, one-lane road taking you up to a lookout that, on a clear day, would let you see Mount Doom and Mount Ruapehu.
Today, at least when I arrived at the lookout, was not a clear day, so… there were no views. 🙃
I hung around a little bit, working on journal catch up efforts as well as hanging from the platform to try and give my spine some relief.
While I was up there, a gentleman and his son arrived, their Honda car badly overheating.
While waiting for it to cool down, we talked, and I taught him about his cooling system (the different components and how they all worked together) and looked around to try to diagnose what was going on with it.
We use my tools and equipment to do a whole bunch of tests. We checked voltages, jumped fans, etc. I can’t remember a whole lot at this point, but if I remember correctly, one fan was working when jumped, but the other one wasn’t, and I think neither was working with the engine hot?
I also found that his radiator cap was bad.
I forget exactly what all ended up being figured out, but we borrowed water from another lady who had come up to the lookout with her kids, filled it up, bled the system a bit, and then I gave the gentleman step by step instructions for what to do next, including replacing the radiator cap immediately, and then following specific steps for more testing to ultimately narrow down exactly what needed to be fixed and when.
Was glad to be able to help, and he was grateful for the help. 😊
From there, I kept heading east and then south down the hill into the valley below on the south end of Lake Taupo, stopping to take some pictures along the way.
I noticed the Tokaanu Thermal Walk on the maps and pulled in to check them out. When I realized there was a paid thermal pools option and a free thermal walk option, I went ahead and just did the little thermal walk, which was sort of super-mini, Yellowstone-type experience.
I do enjoy thermal features–hot springs, geysers, mud parts, you name it. 😊
Funny enough, on the way into town, as I was trying to head toward a cliff jumping spot a little ways up the road on the Southeast coast of Lake Taupo, I accidentally took a wrong turn, and what would you know it, but I passed the French Canadian girls parked on the side of the road. 😆
By the time I got finished with my u-turn comma they had pulled away, and I was a couple of cars behind them. I texted them to say hello, and they went south as I headed northeast at the next intersection.
Super funny to see them on a random street in a random city so far away from where I’d seen them before. 😆
I stopped off to get gas at a place that was absolutely dirt cheap, only defined that even though they weren’t self-pay place, their credit card machine wouldn’t accept my non-coded American credit card.
No super cheap gas for me. 🥺
Started texting back and forth a bit with my sister Heather, as I headed over to the cliff jumping at Pōporo/Bulli Point.
There wasn’t really any parking, but there was a little pull out on the side of the road heading north east just big enough for two vehicles coming, but there were already two vehicles in the spot.
So I had no place to stop and kept on going until the next road, which was a little Day picnic area that went right down to the lake. It was a beautiful little spot, but I didn’t feel like making the long walk up the road to the cliff jumping spot, so I used the place to make a u-turn, and headed back up, hoping to catch one of those spots on the side of the road, as I had seen some people walking back from the cliff jumping spot presumably toward their vehicle.
Gratefully, the spots opened up, and after having to pass the place again in order to find another u-turn spot, I was able to come back and park on the side of the road.
The lake was beautiful, but there were so many ducks, and the water smelled a bit like duck poop. 😅
At least it did a hundred percent over by the little picnic area that I had used as a u-turn spot.
Though I love lakes, swimming in lakes where the shore is covered with duck poop is a little less… inviting. 😅
Over by the cliff jumping spot, it wasn’t so bad, but there were ducks swimming all over. 🙃
I walked over to the cliff jumping spot and sat there debating whether or not I wanted to jump in. While I was there, another couple showed up, the guy climbed down and swam around checking the depth, and then he jumped in.
With that bit of encouragement, and with him checking the depth where I would land from the highest jumping spot, I went ahead and jumped.
I had been hesitant to that point because it was only like a 15-foot, maybe 20 foot jump, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to deal with the drying time come on both for myself and for my clothes for such a small jump. 🙃
But eventually I did, jumping I think two or three times before calling it good.
I got gas on the way back, not cheap but necessary, and then I headed over to my next adventure destination–Okupata Caves.
It was late outside when I first started trying to get there, sun going down, but Google Maps took me the wrong way at first.
Looking at the maps without requesting directions helped me to find the actual route, as the first route given took me through private property that had a no-pass-through rule.
The road out to Okupata Caves was bad. As dirt roads go, that was one of the worst that I’ve driven on in all of New Zealand so far.
Still, it was cool to be going out into the middle of nowhere.
I like nowhere. 🙃
There were a couple of other vans going super duper slow, and when one of them stopped to stare at his phone or something, I took the opportunity to squeeze by him. The one that was ahead of him also stopped, so I went by that one as well, and continued on until I made it to the little pull out for Okupata Caves.
I grabbed my headlamp and headed down toward the caves. The trail wasn’t very far from the road, maybe a few hundred meters? The last bit of it being a metal ladder bolted into the side of a very small Cliff that you climbed down, maybe 10 feet tall?
I saw a few different entrances to caves, and not having ever been there before, I wasn’t sure exactly where one went in, if there were multiple caves, or if all the entrances just went to the same place…
I just didn’t know.
I went into the opening I felt most comfortable with, finding myself in a little room with absolutely massive wetas.
😲
I’ve never seen wetas as big as these.
Holy. Freaking. Crap.
Being out in the middle of nowhere with no phone reception of any kind, and having failed to alert anyone that I was going into caves, and being completely unfamiliar with this particular cave, I decided that it wasn’t smart for me to be going into it.
The sun was down. Nobody knew I was there, and I didn’t want to be stupid.
So I started heading back when, what was my luck, but I ran into a group of people being guided by 20-something? man who is actually a guide for a local company that did tours in that cave.
He wasn’t working, but he was still being a tour guide for some people (French tourists, I think?)
Anyway, I asked if I could tag along, and he said that was totally fine, so I did. 😁
I went in through a different entrance than they did, but met back up with them, he having explained that the entrances all met together.
I then followed him through the river (it’s a river cave) to a spot where he had everyone sit down and turn off their lights.
Glow worms! 😁
I sat there in the dark as we all stared at the glowworms for a good little while, and then as I sensed the silence was wrapping up, I asked the guide about the cave itself, and he explained a bit about the cave, where it went, etc.
What he told me gave me enough confidence that I could explore the cave a little bit on my own, as it was a pretty small cave, so I bid them farewell as they decided not to go deeper into the cave, and I did some exploring.
The very first little spot was a super narrow passageway where the roof was lit up with glow worms. I could turn my headlamp off, and though there weren’t enough glow worms to light my way, I knew where I was going because the glow worms on the roof showed me.
Love it so much. 😁
There wasn’t an extensive cave network with a whole bunch of passages and formations in what not, it still was a cool cave. There were some parts that were a little sketchy–e.g. previous cave ins 😅. But I didn’t spend much time in those areas.
I mostly followed the main river channel through a super duper low spot to where there were some rapids and beautiful limestone cave walls.
I really love how water carves Caves through limestone formations. Beautiful shapes. Beautiful textures. Beautiful colors. 😊
I guess I’m getting a little picture happy. 🙃 I used to only do one picture per day, regardless of how many beautiful things I saw. 😅
I think I have a limit to how much data I can have on my site, so I’m pretty judicious, generally, in the number of pictures I post.
Aaaaaanyway… on the way back, I did some exploring into parts of the cave that made me nervous (cave ins), so I left them pretty quickly.
As I got back closer to the entrance, I found a section of the cave with a whole bunch of glow worms. 😁
It wasn’t to the same magnitude as Waipu Caves, but these were also so much closer.
I had the biggest, happiest smile on my face.
Every time I see a collection of glow worms, it just makes me smile like a little kid. ☺️
I sat in there for a good long time, not wanting to leave, but eventually gave in to reality and headed back out.
Wish I had loved ones with me to share in these experiences.
It’s just… magical.
I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going to stay for the night, so I just started driving back the way I had come in, figuring I would stop at a decent pull out of the main road and call it a night.
Gratefully, I found a good little spot to pull off the road that was out of the way, so I wasn’t risking getting hit by anyone traversing the road in the middle of the night.
Diverse day. Radiator caps… cliffs… caves…
Good day.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 