After our invigorating waterfall hike, we headed south on Route 27, then Rt 1, then 32, toward the final destination of our trip, Lake Taupo. When I researched for our trip, I thought this area looked like it had lots of opportunities for tramping in the types of landscapes we'd never been in before. Several people told us to be sure to pronounce it TOE-por, which we tried to remember to do, but then a lot of the local residents seemed to say TAW-poe; one person apologized and said they were just being lazy, though I couldn't see one way or the other took more effort… 🙂

Here are a couple of photos taken along Rt 32:

We drove through miles of heavily forested land, mostly pine, very different from what we'd seen so far. I was surprised at the number of acres of clear-cut forest we saw, too. There's a fair amount of logging that takes place in Pennsylvania, but no longer any clear-cutting. There were lots of lumber mills and wood products businesses as well. We stopped for a nice (late) lunch of sandwiches and coffees at the Dam Cafe in Mangakino. (I don't think I've mentioned yet how much I love the cool Maori placenames here.) While we ate, I read a local newspaper and learned about a local lumber company whose employees were voluntarily reducing their hours so that everyone could keep their jobs, quite a success story for the local government. And we read some brochures about things to see and do around Lake Taupo.

Then we followed our nav system (for the most part) to our home for the next 3 days, Omori Lake House.

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