Wellington to Auckland via Lake Taupo

Sunday 25Oct, 2009
This is the North Island of New Zealand. The road trip from Wellington to Auckland, as per Google Maps, was 649km and around 9hours long. We followed State Highway 1 the entire trip. Although its a state highway – you don’t travel awfully quickly. Speed limit is 100kmph, but this is often interrupted with 50kmph sections as you go through towns. These photographs are taken through the car window at the various speeds as dictated by the traffic regulations.
	About 30minutes outside of Wellington, just outside the town of Porirua, on the way to Kapiti Coast – fantastic sea views around each corner.
	And then the first of many similar views - green hills and sheep. Beautiful countryside and fresh fresh air.
	Mountains everywhere
	Into the town of Paraparumu
	A State Highway with traffic circles! The state highway also allows pedestrians, cyclists, dog walkers etc. The mix of small town charm and big city technology is one of the unique things NZ has to offer.
	Otaki beach is just a few hundred metres to the left of the highway.
	Farmhouse
	Liked the colours of this car yard.
	Fruit and veg stand – lots and lots of these along the way. In season at the moment strawberries and asparagus.
	The town of Levin
	In the town of Levin is the Swazi shop. This sells outdoor clothing – really fantastic outdoor clothing for anything from hot tropical hikes to ice climbing.
	More nice colours in Levin
	The town of Foxton. They have a bus museum! Not sure how much fun that would be for me, but for some perhaps this holds lots of memories. Also features a doll gallery, a dutch windmill, a tram and a flax stripper.
So this is where we are at now ... Wellington at point A and we are at Foxton, at the arrow.
	Diary – at least one in every small town. Beyond the staples of milk and chocolate you will find fruit and veg and often postage stamps, top ups for calling cards, prepaid cards and bus cards.
	Taupo is now 265km away ..... when we started it was about 360km away Taupo marks past half way to Auckland.
	Streaking past fences and open green pastures
	Old house with roof falling apart – looks perfect for a haunted house.
	Sheep grazing
	Market at Carnarvon
	Houses painted colourfully
	50km per hour on the state highway!
	And we enter the town of Bulls, incredibull place, knowledgeabull (school), reliabull, etc. For real. This town lives its name and its logo.For laughs look here: http://unforgetabull.co.nz/ And incidentally it’s the town where McDonalds gets most of its beef for their shops in NZ.
	217 to Taupo...
	This field had hundreds of cows.
	My estimate on the spread of animals seen on the trip. This is what an alpaca looks like if you’ve never met one before:
	It started to rain a few minutes outside of Bulls. This was the only bit of rain for whole trip, only lasted about 10 minutes.
	Fields of yellow flowers, perhaps canola oil plants?
	Entering the town of Hunterville.
	Ongoing green hills and sheep
	We saw the tail end of this cycle race with cyclists coming up the road in the opposite direction to us.
	Court house and settlers museum in one building?
	I do like the name of the antique shop – Donkey Bray!
	Spectacular red blossoms
	Small town Mangaweka.
	Look for the white aeroplane in the background of this photo. There are signs along the road stating that this is an international airport. Still l not sure if this is for real or a joke. Last time we came by here the aeroplane was pained mostly bright red and yellow with the colours of Cookie Time featuring the cookie monster logo.
	Less than 200km to Taupo!
	Beautiful place this!
	Clouds for Karin
	Small village of houses along the hillside.
	Brown Sugar Cafe and Sports Bar in one.
	The Boot from Taihape
	On the top of the ridge are trees an apricot colour. This is the natural colour of the leaves not a remnant of winter. Later in the journey we saw orange and red and maroon leaf’d trees.
	Mt Ruapehu, with the ski slopes Phakapapa and Turoa that we had been to earlier this year. About 3 hours into the journey now.
	Sunday was a great day for skiing and boarding we found out a few days later.
	National Park could be accessed off SH1. This is the town we have stayed in a couple of times when visiting Mt. Ruapehu.
	Motel and Liquor store right alongside ... makes sense right?
	And then in a blink of an eye the landscape changed! This is Dessert Road. The freakiest thing – from green lush slopes to brown scrub land.
	A stretch of sand
	Then some scrub
	And a basin of white sand
	And then all of a sudden a pine plantation and back to the NZ greenery
	Town of Turangi.
	Wooo hooo – 50km to Taupo
	There is a little coffee shop on the left that went by too fast for me – loved the setting out of tables and chairs in the middle of the road to capture as much sun as possible. And pretty pink blossom trees!
	River Waikato. Really enormous.
	Really small town – Motuoapa - so small that you only need to slow to 70 and it was by in a flash.
	Another small town – Orwatua – which has a big trout fishing focus.
	And there it was Lake Taupo!!!! It’s not the sea, it really is a lake.
	Lake to the left...
	... and to the front..
	...and to the right
Check the scale on bottom left of map to see how massive the lake is...
	Ryan the best driver in the world!