Travel

Hiking to Huka Falls – A Rainy New Zealand Hike

November 26, 2011

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I don’t have ONE favorite place. I can tell you about one of my favorite places though: New Zealand. During my round the world trip, I ended up staying in New Zealand for a month. I couldn’t get enough of this country and hope to get back to ‘the land of the long white cloud’ in the next year or two.

This photo is from a a rainy April day in Taupo. I was in Taupo for a few days, hoping that the storms would pass and that the Tongariro Crossing would open back up. On this morning, I was disappointed to find out that the crossing was still closed, meaning that I probably wouldn’t be able to do this trek until a future trip to NZ, as I had to continue on from Taupo to Auckland to catch a flight to Bangkok. So we decided to make the most of the day we had left and headed out of town on foot along the Waikato River towards Huka Falls. We followed little trails all the way to Huka Falls, and scoped out the spa park area for the next day (where a warm, muddy creek flows into the river!) along the way. The trail was gorgeous and a few hours later we reached the falls. We had lunch at the heli-pad cafe north of Huka Falls and then walked all the way back to town. By the time we got home we were exhausted, but so happy that we’d braved the weather.

Huka falls, Taupo New Zealand hike

Have you been to New Zealand?

New Zealand, in general, is one of my favorite places in the world. I did a lot of hiking in New Zealand and can’t wait to go back and see more of the North Island.

Where is one of your favorite places?