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Monday, July 3, 2017

On the Road to Taupo

We took the slow road to Taupo stopping at Flat Hills new campsite on our first night away.  There was plenty of wildlife to keep us interested, from the pukeko happily living by the small lake, looking just like a “bunch of purple chickens”, as we overheard a tourist say a while ago.  What I didn’t realise until Mr Google informed me recently is that groups can have multiple breeding males and females, but all eggs are laid in a single nest and the group offspring are raised by all group members.  That’s certainly communal living at it’s best.

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Pukeko at the lake

I had to go and say hello to the herd of pretty alpacas – all too busy munching away on their hay to bother with me.
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Alpacas are so cute

Our next overnight stop was the alpine town of Ohakune, situated at the base of Mt Ruapehu.  And what a wonderful view to wake up to each day.  This is the view we saw from our caravan site, the moody mountain with it’s peaks covered in swirling clouds.  No wonder it’s chilly at Ohakune, the town is situated at 2029 feet above sea level.

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Mt Ruapehu

Ohakune is famous for a couple of things – the Big Carrot for one.  This is an excellent area for growing carrots, parsnips, swedes, potatoes and Brussel sprouts.

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Thee Big Carrot of Ohakune

And the other great attraction is the “world famous in Ohakune” are the giant Chocolate Éclairs.  I’ll admit that we did have one or two while we were here.

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How could we say no?

We have now moved on to Taupo, going a little knitting in the car on the way.  I’m knitting the collar for my cardigan.

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Knitting in the car

And it’s just as well I’ve packed some cozy warm socks to keep my feet warm,  these have caravans all over them.  And we have some of those wonderfully warm “Artic Sheets” on the bed, and a heater to keep things nice and comfortable inside the caravan.

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Just the thing to wear in the caravan

I’m busy doing the laundry in the camp laundry room, must be time to check how that machine is getting along.  It’s one of those cold damp sort of days, so I’ve had to use the drier too – no chance to hang the clothes outside today.

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Into the drier

We’ve come up to Taupo for a special reason ……more about that later.

3 comments:

Tired Teacher said...

How fun to see the giant carrot and enjoy giant eclairs, too. Looking forward to your next post and the reason you made this trip.

Maria said...

Love those warm cosy caravan socks...
Boy we never get away from the laundry, even on holidays.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing the pics of the wildlife and that carrot. Too funny! There's a town in Texas where a lot of spinach is grown and they have a giant statue of Popeye, but I never saw anything like that carrot. Cute socks.