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Taupo Area

Aug 2008

The weather forecast Saturday night predicted heavy rain and thunderstorms, 15 minutes later we were short 4 of the intended starters. So just after 6 o’clock the next morning 8 of us left Pernel Orchard headed towards Taupo arriving at the carpark on Mountain Road around 8.30. Geoff had a Geocache site he wanted to visit on top of Tauhara but had his young grandson to consider so stayed behind and did two other caches in the Taupo Botanical Gardens. It was obvious there was going to be no view on the top so, with Peter having a GPS, we gladly took up the Tauhara Geocache Mission. Geoff loaded the relevant waypoints and we headed up the track, firstly across farmland then over a fence and up through bush.
There was a slight drizzle but it wasn’t too cold provided we didn’t stop in one place for too long. It took just over 90 minutes to reach the trig where upon Peter took out his GPS and informed us that the Geocache was about 500 metres away. Following his directions we walked along the flat top, following a well beaten track, until he said it was about 2 feet away and there it was, a small lunch box hiding under some shrubs. We quickly logged an entry and replaced the “treasure”, turned and retraced our steps back to the trig. It was a lot colder on the tops and the drizzle had bits of ice in it so it was good to get off the tops and head back down the track.

It took about an hour to get back down to the truck and we decided to drive to Spa Park to have lunch. There was no shelter there so lunch was eaten in the truck after which we walked the track from Spa Park to Huka Falls with Geoff and Ethan taking the truck round. The Waikato River was really high, almost up to the track in some places and Huka Falls when we got there was awesome. We met Geoff and Ethan en route to another Geocache as we approached the falls and after viewing the falls returned to the truck and headed for De Bretts for a soak before heading home.