Huka Falls Hike/Walk/Adventure!

We were looking for something to do with Dexter today, so we decided to find a good walk to take him on. There was a suggestion on this super tourist map we got to walk from Aratiatia Rapids to Huka Falls in 2 hours and we felt that'd be both a good workout and some fun sights, not to mention a great jaunt for Dexter to participate in. Our original plan was to go from Aratiatia Dam to Huka Falls and back, making it about a 14km hike, which we thought would be mostly flat, given the proximity to the river.

The walk itself from the dam to the falls was not super exciting, mostly because it didn't follow the river exactly and had a number of hills and not much change of scenery. The highlights were seeing the Geothermal energy plant, something that New Zealand should really be exporting (expertise wise!), and a really cool (but equal parts creepy) part of the forest where the bugs were just soooo incredibly loud. I'll post a video below so you can hear how overwhelming they were.

After we got to Huka Falls we decided to continue on all the way back to Taupo and figure out how to get back to the car after that (which I ended up doing by taking a $6 shuttle from Taupo Bungy (maybe I'll do this later!) back to Aratiatia Dam). That walk was much more fun, closer to the river, and we found an awesome hot spring stream along the way where Jacqui soothed her aching feet. I did a rare opt-out of the hot water dip since it was overly crowded and I'd be upset getting back into my socks and shoes afterwards.

Here's a neat map and fitness information for the entire hike: click - boy do I have a big fitness post to blog about one day. I've been logging lots of runs with this thing. Anyways, many awesome pictures from this hike! Read on, fellow adventurers!

Dexter's beside himself with joy over being off leash for most of the 12.5km walk we did.

Any followers of our blog must know how much I love these shorts by now. Oops, embarrassingly wearing them in 95% of all photos! [Jacqui: Which is impressive because you wear them 100% of the time ;) ]

What a nice day for a hike (or as Kiwis say: a tramp)!

Wairakei Power Station in the background, and the Taupo Prawn Farm in the foreground. Would be cool to see eventually, but we didn't on this trip.

A strange area of random felled trees we encountered. I associate telling Jacqui the plot-line of my book I'm reading right now as we walked through this area.

This photo of a thistle flower took me a ridiculous number of tries to center properly. This one's probably the best.

All these flower pictures I take would be much better captioned with species info, but I just have no idea.

These long wheaty strands are found everywhere on our walks, including this one.

Normally Dexter likes to wade in water while he drinks and only goes for a swim if we throw something for him, but this time he did a a little swimming all on his own! Hot puppy!

One of the creepy bugs from the creepy bug forest area.

These guys clapped their wings together for maximum crazy noise.

Another one of the creepiest ones. wtf is it?!

The water colours in the Waikaito River are amazing.

Dexter thinks so too! Leaning puppy.

Huka Falls! Look at the size of the person in the top left for comparison. 200,000 litres of water flow through here every second. It's a deep thin channel that won't get much wider because it's encased by hard lava rock.

Always learning! Fresh water eels are common in NZ but not in Lake Taupo thanks to the crazy current in Huka Falls.

Taken from a bridge over the channel from the lake to the falls. The intensity of the water was incredible.

Taking a little break for a picture with Dexter!

And another self shot of us! We love these. And apparently Adidas hats.

What's this? Steaming hot water just in the middle of no where.

Sadly a lot of others found it too!

Jax found a little spot for herself though!