I met her in the mountains, though I lived down by the sea

Alternative title: The North Island's coldest city

Weekend trip to Lake Taupo, as a couple of weeks ago running a completely off road (read: uphill) half marathon sounded like a pretty good idea. This was our first trip to Taupo, save a couple of pass-throughs on the way to/from Auckland.

As we are now poor kiwi folk, we traveled like poor kiwi folk, and stayed in a backpackers. We sprang for a private room/bathroom ($64 ND--around $40 US). Aside from a rather uncomfortable mattress and a cold room (which was our fault for not noticing that the window was open until morning), the place was not too bad.

There seems to be nothing you cannot do in Taupo. Yes, you can hit a golf ball onto a floating putting green without going to Tokyo.


Brilliant sunshine on Saturday, so we hiked along the Waikato River...

...to Huka Falls (New Zealand's most visited natural attraction). The falls were not what I was expecting, but they were still quite impressive.




I thought I'd start a series called: "Nico on a picnic".


Here are a couple of shots of the lake in winter.



And a quick stop at New Zealand's biggest underground wine cellar (Only one room would fit in the frame).


Sunday was race day. Nico finished her first ever 10K, and had enough time to take a picture of me at the end of the half marathon. Official time 2:06 (hey, it was really steep...and -3 degrees at the start).


After the race, we had a soak in the Taupo Hot Springs. Sorry, no photos.

And another series I have just started: "Nico having a pint".