Taupo
I spent a night in Taupo, then spent the first half of the day taking in some of the sights around this city on the Central Volcanic Plateau, including Huka Falls and Aratiatia Rapids
December 16, 2004

01-LakeTaupo Lake Taupo, on the evening of Wednesday, December 15, 2004 ... I stayed the night at a hostel in Taupo, after an exhausting seven-hour drive from Wellington (via Rivendell and Mangawhero Falls) ... Lake Taupo is the largest lake in New Zealand, and is a very large crater lake, formed by a volcanic explosion in AD 151, which many scientists rate as the world's most powerful volcanic explosion of the last 2000 years (or at the very least, one of the two or three most powerful) ... the Taupo volcanic explosion, which extinguished all life on pretty much the entire North Island, was heard and felt as far away as Rome, where scribes recorded its effects 02-LakeTaupo Lake Taupo, on Thursday, December 16, 2004 03-LakeTaupo Lake Taupo, with a little squall moving in 04-LakeTaupo Lake Taupo 05-Rooster Rooster 06-WaikatoRiverInfo Info for the Waikato River 07-HukaFalls Huka Falls, on the Waikato River 08-HukaFalls Huka Falls 09-WaikatoRiver Waikato River, New Zealand's longest and largest river 10-WaikatoRiver Waikato River, Huka Falls 11-HukaFalls Huka Falls 12-HukaFallsInfo Huka Falls info 13-HukaFalls Huka Falls 14-HukaFalls Huka Falls 15-HukaFalls Huka Falls ... the volume of water coming through that waterfall is simply amazing 16-WaikatoRiver Waikato River 17-HukaFalls Huka Falls, from the other side 18-VolcanicActivityCentre Volcanic Activity Centre, in Taupo ... they had a couple cool movies about the eruptions of Mt Ngauruhoe in 1976 and Mt Ruapehu in 1995 and 1996-7 19-LakeTaupo Taupo 20-RapidWaterRiseSign Rapid water rise sign, at Aratiatia Rapids 21-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids 22-AratiatiaDam Aratiatia Dam ... at select intervals throughout the day, the dam is opened or closed, to allow or block massive amounts of water entering the canyon/rapids area 23-BlackSwans Black swans 24-Bridge Bridge 25-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids 26-RoadBridge Road bridge, with the dam right behind it 27-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids, starting to fill up 28-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids 29-AratiatiaRapids The floodgates are definitely open 30-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids 31-WaikatoRiver Waikato River 32-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids 33-WaikatoRiver Waikato River 34-Jared-AratiatiaRapids I happened to show up by chance 10 minutes before the dam opened, so I decided to stick around and watch it 35-WaikatoRiver Waikato River 36-Jared-WaikatoRiver Me admiring the Waikato River 37-AratiatiaRapidsLookout Aratiatia Rapids lookout ... that's where I got most of the previous pictures of the rapids from, and where I took the movie of its rise ... the movie is located on the Movies page of my website 38-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids 39-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids, looking downstream from the dam 40-FallingWaterLevels Falling water levels as the floodgates are closed 41-AratiatiaRapids Aratiatia Rapids, shrinking to a trickle for another couple hours 42-WaikatoRiver Waikato River

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