Taupo

Hi there

A few weeks ago I got it into my head that I'd like to go to Whitianga which is a coastal town higher up the North Island of New Zealand.  And so I went there.

I was in Whitianga for a week.  Lovely swimming, terrific weather.  So many things to see and places to go.  I ate a lot.  I drove there and back.  My driving is on borrowed time because of my poor eyesight.

  Driving back home, I thought that Lake Taupo looked beautiful, and the weather was extremely warm so. on the spur of the moment, I stayed in the town of Taupo for three nights.

On Thursday, it was so hot in Taupo that I had three swims in the lake over a period of an hour and a half.  As I was getting out of the water,  some scientific guys were arriving with signs that they dug into the ground declaring that the lake water was unsafe to swim in due to high levels of toxic algae bloom.  The guys took water samples and were warning people away from the lake.  Apparently swimmers could come down with rash, respiratory troubles, headaches, eye infections, etc.

I've warned my friends that the time to worry is when I start to glow in the dark, or mutate into a weird creature, or if Skittles-like spots cover my body.  My friends are watching me like hawks, afraid it all might be catching.

We're all going on a summer holiday-lah-de-dah-dah

Well, it wasn't a 'we' going on a summer holiday, just 'me', all by myself - and it wasn't just "a" summer holiday, but seven (repeat seven of them). Talk about greedy! And I loved every one.

First it was four days in Auckland. Good swimming, usual beaches - Waiheke, Takapuna, Mission Bay. Then I went for 5 nights to my beautiful Eketahuna holiday home (look up The Cottage Eketahuna on the web)

Then I went for a week to Queenstown. I stayed at a Manchester Unity holiday home (see picture above right) but - oh dear! it was up the top of a very (very) steep hill. Okay for people with a car but I had to walk it a couple of times a day. I could have taken a taxi home every day from the town but I resented having to pay the $12-$15 fare. But in compensation the view was out of this world (see picture above left) and I was staying in a very cheap place, for Queenstown. I swam in the lake almost every day. I was worried at first because everybody had said that nobody swam in the lake; it was glacial. What rot. It was wonderful. I had a 20 minute swim every day. I hired a kayak another day but kept to the edges of the lake because I was told that if I fell out in the centre of the lake hyperthermia sets in after 20 minutes. I loved walking around the edge of the lake to Frankton and did this most days, bus-ing back to Q'town. By flashing my gold card on the bus trip from the airport to town, I managed to get a 'free' bus card for my holdiay

Next holiday was a long one, a month: Ohope Beach (boogie boarded all the time because water too wild for actual swimming), Mt Maunganui (stayed right across road from a good boogie-board beach, but got my daily afternoon swimming fix at more serene Pilot Bay), Whitianga (horrible for swimming, there'd been a big storm and for most of the time, there was a lot of debris in the water)., Lake Taupo (nice relaxing, swam every day).

At Whitianga I'd been out snorkelling off a boat and when I clambered back on board I was told about the big Christchurch earthquake. Couldn't believe it, told the woman who was showing me a text on her cellphone that she must have been reading about the September one. How sad, awful, I was shocked.
Planning next summer's holiday.....