The pristine treasures of Lake Taupo
Our taxi driver Gazza made an interesting disclosure when we were waiting for the robot to turn green from red.
“This is the only signal you will find in Taupo,” the giant-sized Birmingham man quipped as we were heading to Tauranga after a one-and-a-half hour stop-over in that small but beautiful city in the north island of New Zealand.
The biggest tourist attraction of this small and sleepy city is its magnificent Lake Taupo, the crystal clear blue water of its vast reservoir is perhaps un-matched as far as the world's pristine lakes are concerned. Bigger then Singapore in size, this is the most popular tourist destination for people of this part of the world. We were actually lucky to enjoy our time under glorious sunshine in the great lake as we were heading from Napier to Tauranga, where Bangladesh will play their next two T20 Internationals later this week.
The 142-kilometre drive may be a pleasing experience through the beautiful landscape surrounded by hills, pine forest and vast farmlands, but the site of Lake Taupo from a distance gave us the impression that we were looking at a blue pearl on the lap of a white Alpine Mountain. I have been to Phewa Lake in the Phokhara Valley of Nepal or our own Kaptai Lake in Chittagong. Those are certainly beautiful but Taupo is not only enormous in size, it is a beholder's paradise and provides full value of multiple entertainments. Born out of a violent volcanic eruption as long as 2000 years ago, this pristine lake is primarily a popular destination for fishing. But starting from scuba diving, sailing, short trips on old-fashioned and modern powerboats to enjoying seafood and a cup of espresso coffee sitting on the shore, it has got everything for you and your family to enjoy a never-before-experienced holiday.
Every lake has a system to flush out its overflowing water and the Huka Falls, which is only a five-minute drive from the lake, is another very popular tourist destination.
“This thundering 11-metre high waterfall is the most visited and photographed natural attraction in New Zealand. The sheer volume of water flowing over the falls amounts to 220,000 litres per second -- enough to fill one Olympic sized swimming pool in 11 seconds!” quotes a popular article. But you hardly feel that mighty flow of water even when you are as close as 100 metres of that narrow strip between two granite banks. The best place to see the millions of tonnes of water flowing is a small bridge. Standing on that bailey bridge and looking at the cascading flow of water, one thing everyone in the mix did was take photographs as long as they could. The young ones tried to wink down before being refrained by their parents. It was a day to enjoy the tranquillity and the beautiful fury of nature. The only disturbing aspect of our whole trip from Napier to Tauranga was a road accident -- a head-on-collision between two cars -- on the freeway as we were moving from Taupo to Tauranga.