* * Day 4, Taupo

It is Christmas morning as I write from the comfortable leather chair in the parlor of Suzanne and Gordon Stevenson in Taupo. Nobody else is awake. Outside, the sky is a uniform grey and the leaves on the small trees in the back yard flutter gently. Otherwise, it is completely quiet except for the cuckoo clock that chimes on the half-hour in the dining room.

We’re continuing on with what has turned out to be for these first few days a couch-surfing experience. This will change and become less so next week when we fly to the South Island, where there are fewer people and we have arranged fewer visits. But for the time being, this method of travel has been great fun.

We left Whakatane yesterday morning under heavy skies, southbound towards the center of the north island. Our primary destination was the tourism site at Te Puia. This is a Maori cultural center combined with a thermal area and geyser basin. The admission was $48 each to walk the boardwalks around the basin and watch the geyser eruption and to take in a show of music and chanting by costumed Maori performers. The aggressive movements were a show of shouting and posturing, with the signature tongue wagging. The other performances were gentler, with swaying arms and hips, and the spinning of decorative baseball-sized balls strung from handles. The audience was made up with tourists from around the world, notably Japan and India.

On our way to Taupo, we stopped at Huka Falls, a waterfall in the Waikato River which drains the lake. It is not a true waterfall, in that the water doesn’t drop vertically. But it is impressive in its volume, which reputedly is enough to fill two Olympic size swimming pools every second! The crystal clear water crashes downward in a white frothing maelstrom, landing in a blue-green pool at the bottom. A jet-boat powered itself upstream to the base of the falls where it made a couple of quick laps before retreating downstream.

The Stevensons are a fascinating couple. They have three grown children. Their eldest daughter lives 2 hours away in Hamilton, the town we’re going to next. Her daughter, their granddaughter, is here now, visiting for Christmas. Her name is Ianna and she’s thirteen (which she pronounces as “thir-deen”). Their two sons live in London. Gordon is retired from a career in medicine, mostly in the military. They’ve lived all over New Zealand and have chosen Taupo for their golden years. Their peripatetic lives have taken them all over the world and they have a particular fondness for Russia, India, and Scotland, where his people migrated from the Shetland Islands off the northern coast. They commonly spend several weeks each year wandering the planet, and although he’s had a triple-bypass operation and she’s had a broken pelvis, they continue to move around. And they’ve frequently hosted travelers at their home, sometimes for only one day like us and at times several months. Gordon is not only active in Rotary, but in Freemasons, and town government.

Gordon was kind enough to take Whitney and me on a driving tour of the city, which has a population of around 25,000 people. The most appealing feature is the long, public beach fronting the lake. The lake itself is large and almost round, and is filled with the clearest fresh water imaginable. Gordon complains that the federal government has mandated that the town build a water treatment plant even though the water is clean enough to drink right from the lake. Several kids sat in a scooped-out puddle at the edge of the lake where hot water seeps from the ground; a natural spa. We drove through downtown, which like the others we’ve seen has a pleasant, prosperous look with marked pedestrian areas and crossings and large planters filled with blooming flowers. The buildings were mostly one storey and appeared to be occupied and profitable. We drove to the edge of downtown and parked at the community’s bungee jump center. There was no indication from the approach or the parking lot, but the complex sat atop a cliff over the river. A cantilevered structure with a jump platform hung over the river. The attraction was closed on Christmas Eve, but it was easy enough to envision the thrill that jumpers would get from diving into the air headed for the bouncing stop above the clear waters.

Then we drove a ten kilometer loop outside the town. We drove past the base of one of the volcanic mountains. When I asked Gordon about climbing it, he said it was easily done within a couple of hours, but it belonged to the Maoris and permission needed to be asked. Then we drove past a new geothermal power plant which generates enough power from the underground steam to power two towns the size of Taupo.

Gordon spoke about the differences is the way the Maori culture reacted to the influx of Europeans, primarily English, and the way native peoples in North America reacted. He said in North America, Europeans decimated local peoples but in New Zealand they intermarried with them. “They came to settle rather than to conquer.” There is certainly some tension in New Zealand between the Maoris and the Europeans, but it seems muted and relationships are mostly congenial. “Most native people today now have some English blood in them,” he said.

Suzanne fed us a nice, informal dinner of ham, coleslaw, bean salad, and potatoes, with a delicious desert of trifle and crème. Suzanne and Gordon frequently interrupted each other in a banter they’ve perfected over almost 4 decades of life together. It was fun to watch!

We’re on our way shortly to Hamilton to Christmas brunch at our next new best friend.