a week in turangi, the trout fishing capital of the world
sunday
left napier bright and early sunday morning to hitch to turangi. i always feel a bit safer hitching on sunday mornings - surely any shady characters are asleep somewhere at that time... as i was walking out to the edge of town, a car stopped and a woman shouts across 2 lanes of traffic "are you hitching?" well, not at the moment, but "yeah, to taupo" "GET IN!" as i do, my happy stream of thank-yous is interrupted by a sharp voice. "what do you think you're doing hitching by yourself? that's dangerous! does your mother know what you're doing? does your mother even know where you are? when was the last time you called her?" etc etc etc... it was very kind of these two women to drive me the first 20km or so of my journey, but i've never been so happy to get out of a car. they were relentless. no amount of charm or the blatant falsification i resorted to could make them stop. tag-team nagging.
arrived in turangi before noon, 3 1/2 hours ahead of my pre-arranged meeting time. picked up a map and took a self-guided walking tour, then had just 3 1/4 hours to kill... the trout fishing capital of the world is no metropolis.
orientation
a whole week of it. necessary, but not very exciting. firstly, 2 days of mostly office-based orientation. things you'd expect from any orientation - how to fill out paperwork, what to do in case of a fire, earthquake, major volcanic eruption... then, wednesday morning... finally! into the mountains! the park is amazing - i can't wait to explore... and more orientation - this time with fresh air and giant volcanoes in the background - the best shortcuts, which creeks make good baths, and how to set the possum traps around the hut. yup, i think i'm going to like this gig...
weekend!
beginning monday, only 2 of us will be out of the mountains at the same time, but we have a whole weekend together now... how to spend a hot summer's day in turangi? in the water!
friday afternoon we scavenged some innertubes from jimmy, scouted the local rafting outfitter, and decided we would float down the "family float" section of the river. probably pretty mellow in a big raft, but in a little black tire tube, just big enough to drop your butt through the middle where it could hit every rock just under the surface... plenty of excitement, thank you. the river moves, and there are plenty of rocks and such to stir things up. it was FUN though and we made it 2/3 of the way back to town without incident. that's when chris dumped, and all we could see was his legs sticking straight up. by the time he righted himself, his glasses and his tube were lost. but he was fine and we all had a good laugh... and a slightly longer than planned walk home.
saturday's afternoon activity was cliff jumping at lake taupo. woohoo! something i had never done... reacquainted myself with my fear of heights. and had some great jumping. it wasn't really all that high - probably only 15-20 feet - but that was plenty high for me. lake taupo is a HUGE lake resulting in the crater of the largest volcanic eruption in the last couple thousand years, surrounded by mountains and heated in part by the ongoing geothermal activity in the area. swimming with a view.
and now it's sunday morning again... and tomorrow morning it's off into the park.
left napier bright and early sunday morning to hitch to turangi. i always feel a bit safer hitching on sunday mornings - surely any shady characters are asleep somewhere at that time... as i was walking out to the edge of town, a car stopped and a woman shouts across 2 lanes of traffic "are you hitching?" well, not at the moment, but "yeah, to taupo" "GET IN!" as i do, my happy stream of thank-yous is interrupted by a sharp voice. "what do you think you're doing hitching by yourself? that's dangerous! does your mother know what you're doing? does your mother even know where you are? when was the last time you called her?" etc etc etc... it was very kind of these two women to drive me the first 20km or so of my journey, but i've never been so happy to get out of a car. they were relentless. no amount of charm or the blatant falsification i resorted to could make them stop. tag-team nagging.
arrived in turangi before noon, 3 1/2 hours ahead of my pre-arranged meeting time. picked up a map and took a self-guided walking tour, then had just 3 1/4 hours to kill... the trout fishing capital of the world is no metropolis.
orientation
a whole week of it. necessary, but not very exciting. firstly, 2 days of mostly office-based orientation. things you'd expect from any orientation - how to fill out paperwork, what to do in case of a fire, earthquake, major volcanic eruption... then, wednesday morning... finally! into the mountains! the park is amazing - i can't wait to explore... and more orientation - this time with fresh air and giant volcanoes in the background - the best shortcuts, which creeks make good baths, and how to set the possum traps around the hut. yup, i think i'm going to like this gig...
weekend!
beginning monday, only 2 of us will be out of the mountains at the same time, but we have a whole weekend together now... how to spend a hot summer's day in turangi? in the water!
friday afternoon we scavenged some innertubes from jimmy, scouted the local rafting outfitter, and decided we would float down the "family float" section of the river. probably pretty mellow in a big raft, but in a little black tire tube, just big enough to drop your butt through the middle where it could hit every rock just under the surface... plenty of excitement, thank you. the river moves, and there are plenty of rocks and such to stir things up. it was FUN though and we made it 2/3 of the way back to town without incident. that's when chris dumped, and all we could see was his legs sticking straight up. by the time he righted himself, his glasses and his tube were lost. but he was fine and we all had a good laugh... and a slightly longer than planned walk home.
saturday's afternoon activity was cliff jumping at lake taupo. woohoo! something i had never done... reacquainted myself with my fear of heights. and had some great jumping. it wasn't really all that high - probably only 15-20 feet - but that was plenty high for me. lake taupo is a HUGE lake resulting in the crater of the largest volcanic eruption in the last couple thousand years, surrounded by mountains and heated in part by the ongoing geothermal activity in the area. swimming with a view.
and now it's sunday morning again... and tomorrow morning it's off into the park.
posted by bethany @ 9:06 AM
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