Lake Taupo with Dexter Dog

We drove down to Taupo this week for a vacation within our vacation! It was a great couple days in the camper van, though the camping was once more of the holiday park variety :) Dexter had fun too! He is happy when he gets to come with us instead of staying at home (not that we would leave him at home for a multi-day trip).

We broke most of our activities into separate posts, but here's a bunch of pictures from around Taupo!

Cool black swans (I think?)

Dexter wanted to investigate the birds, but I think he would have been scared if he had actually encountered a swan :)

Went for a walk around Lake Taupo

Pretty

So many interesting birds that I can't identify!

Dexter made a puppy friend

Surprisingly wavy for a lake. It was pretty windy this evening.

Volcanoes off in the distance (I think)

This is actually an electrician company, haha!

Hehe cute!

Hot springs at our campground! Not the best but still nice. 

Our little campsite

Strawberry

The best looking strawberry I have found so far. It's so cute!

Off to Lake Taupo tomorrow! Be back in a couple days with stories and pictures :)

Waihi Beach

We are well into summer now, and it's HOT! Perfect for a day at the beach. We decided to drive the extra distance for Waihi beach this time (about 40min drive) and it as worth it because it was very uncrowded. We spent a couple hours enjoying the cloudless blue sky and waves, before retreating back indoors. Gotta be careful with the UV down here!

Dexter was happy for a cool down in the water too! This part of the beach is great because it's open to dogs all year round.

Almost deserted beach. The Mount if off in the distance.

Too bright for Scott, haha.

Fetch!

Deep water for Dexter!

Relaxing and reading

Dexter is cooled down and happy. Though he would be happier if he got to sit on our towels with us, ha.

Cupcake snack at the beack!

Pizza and Cupcakes

I have been wanting to make pizza for a long time, and finally got around to it! I used the breadmaker to make the dough, so it was delicious and fresh but I didn't have to knead it and make a floury disaster in the kitchen :) The toppings were simple: fresh tomato and basil from the garden, and cheese of course. I had to also use a tomato sauce from the store, because the tomato are just starting to ripen so I only had a few. But there are lots on the way so soon we will have more than we can eat!

I failed in evenly splitting the dough so one was way bigger, haha.

Fresh basil and baby tomatoes, yum yum.

Ready to eat!

I was in a cooking mood, so I also made cupcakes. The zucchini are growing like crazy and there are only so many ways to eat them! This was my second attempt at chocolate zucchini cupcakes, and more successful because I bought a real grater this time. Last time I only had one with tiny holes and the zucchini was basically a slurry.

Grating zucchini was way faster and better this time.

Yay Pams brand baking supplies

Om nom nom 

Scott cooked too, he made some delicious steak! He also grilled the rest of the giant zucchini for me (the cupcakes only used half).

BBQ goodness

Puketoki Reserve

There is a nice forest walk near our house (about half an hour walk away) called Puketoki Reserve. It was a nice sunny day today so we checked it out. We did the long loop, and the whole excursion took about 2.5h including all our stops and Dexter swim breaks. Here's some pictures!

I got into Dexter portraits today... sorry/you're welcome, depending on how you feel about that :)

Dexter posing with some pretty flowers

Walking in Puketoki Reserve

Sun is peaking into the forest

Ridiculous picture of Dexter, haha

Scott looking cool with his backwards hat 

Dexter posing in a field

Dexter posing by a stream

Posing for pictures is boring

Passed some donkeys on the way home. They are so cute!

Dexter and the donkey have a nose kiss

This bird and sheep are friends :) 

Typical NZ landscape

Dexter at the swimming hole

Long swim

Splash!

Dexter used to be scared of jumping in off this ledge, but now he is brave!

The Mount

Today we went into Tauranga for some errands, and also hit the beach. The beach is in the town of Mt Maunganui (which may or may not be part of Tauranga), named for the volcano cone that rises at the end of the town. It's usually just called "The Mount", which is nice because I don't really know how to pronounce "Maunganui"... 

The Mount area has 2 beaches: one facing the bay and one facing the ocean. (The area is pretty complex, check it out on a map!)We went to the ocean beach today. There was lots of people surfing, we will have to bring our boards next time!

View of "The Mount" (on the left) from the beach

Beautiful day!

Dexter missed the waves!

Scott noticed these little clams that were washed up by the waves

After the wave left they would dig back into the sand!

Dig dig dig

Bye...

Karangahake Gorge's Historic Walk

We were looking for something to do to enjoy the nicer weather we've finally been getting and stumbled upon Karangahake Gorge, a bunch of cool walks around an area heavily used in the mining of gold in the late 19th century. A bunch of old "batteries" (a building to do with extracting gold and silver from ore, but I can't find out more about it due to Wikipedia being down for SOPA protests - BOO SOPA BTW, and ACTA, which Canada is secretly aiming to support, sigh...) were littered about the area. The highlight was an 1100 metre railway tunnel that now is a walking path through a hillside. Very cool.

For most of the trip I was craving a Double Quarter Pounder from McD's, so we drove out of our way to Paeroa to get one afterwards and the asshole manager there decided my meal wasn't worth more than 2 ketchup packets so out of frustration at being denied more ketchup I returned my meal for a refund and they threw it out instead. Totally sounds reasonable to me, 2-3 more packets is too much of a waste, so we'll waste this whole meal instead. McDonald's NZ's twitter account seemed to agree with the manager. So it's off to BK and Wendy's when I crave a burger from now on, thanks for nothing! =\

We walked from Karangahake parking to Owharoa Falls.

Cool bridge

Dexter and Jacqui on a very swingy bridge.

One of the batteries

The entrance to the old tunnel on the top, car bridge on the bottom.

Dexter's totally in his element... Long walks are beloved by our dog. :D

Bye daylight...

Inside the Karangahake Gorge tunnel looked super cool.

Can I go swimming please?

Dexter gets some fetch before we continue on

Tall waterfall!

We found this waterfall on the way that wasn't mentioned on any of the maps we found online.

Dexter found this stick on his own and wanted to play. lol

Pretty flowers

Dexter wanted to walk by these flowers twice they were so pretty.

This was our destination on our chosen walk, the Owharoa falls (who knows how to pronounce that)

We all made it! This picture was taken by balancing the camera on a bucket, but we had ironically just met 2 Canadians from Edmonton minutes before. Small world!

Dexter wasn't cooperating with the self portrait

Nice close-up

Plants are making a cool pattern in this stream

Little bird on the path looks grumpy

Jacqui is being crushed! Dexter is interested.

One of the walkways by the river. This place was pretty deserted considering how nice it was and how cool the scenery is!

Dexter is thinking about jumping in, but the current is too strong!

Cool swirlys in the water