Taupō I

So there I was again, sitting on the bus. Saying goodbye to Wellington had not been easy, but I had to move on to the next stop. I had chosen Taupō, partly because someone had told me it was beautiful, partly because a number of geological peculiarities come together here. The journey there was another long bus ride, though at least the nausea stayed within manageable limits.

Even on the way there, I noticed the differences. The South Island differs quite clearly from the North Island in both flora and overall appearance. The North Island feels greener, with lots of rolling hills and forests, while the South Island appears rougher, more alpine, and more expansive, shaped by the Southern Alps, open landscapes, and cooler habitats. And at last I also saw what the Kiwis are so famous for, sheep. Not that they do not exist in the south, but here they suddenly really stood out to me.

The closer we got to this region, the more volcanic it became. In the distance you can almost already see Mordor shimmering. You drive for a long time along Tongariro National Park, and Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu did not serve as inspiration for a few scenes for nothing. Then we went a few more kilometers along the lake, past endless Lake View motel settlements, until the bus driver dumped us in Taupō and I staggered to my accommodation. There I was received by a rather disorganized Polish woman with a great deal of charm. Or perhaps the charm was precisely the disorganization. Shortly afterward I had the key to a lake view room in my hand, second row, admittedly, but from the bedroom I can see the lake. And the apartment next door. And through that one I can also see the lake. On top of that she pressed a bicycle into my hand. The sort of thing my backside would normally not even glance at, but well then, here we go.

So I found myself back in the village center again, running errands. The rest of the day consisted of doing laundry, working, correspondence, done. I looked out at the lake and sighed. I missed Queenstown. There you only have to sit down somewhere and watch the bustle and the panorama. Here I have to become active and earn the beauty for myself.

The next morning looked much the same at first, then I finally got going on the bicycle, over to Huka Falls on the Waikato River, across the bridge, photo one, photo two, and then I saw the sign. Cycleway, no, mountain bike trail to the left, straight ahead. I looked at the bike. Yes, it was a mountain bike. I looked at the saddle. I sighed and rode off. That was going to hurt tomorrow.

I set off along the trail through the jungle. It was actually a quite decent path over roots and rocks. My gear shifting was not exactly simple, the chain liked to slip over the pizza plate on climbs and you had to pedal a little until it caught again. The pizza plate is the largest cog on the rear wheel. I rode, I pushed, I jumped, I had a front suspension fork, that had been a long time. To the right it went steeply uphill, to the left steeply down toward the river, and I tore along the trail at enormous speed, whistling happily. It was great fun. Pothole.

After a few kilometers and several muddy sections, I was standing at Aratiatia Rapids at 3:30 p.m., and a large sign announced it: 4 p.m., the next release.

I had read about it. On the Waikato there is a system of nine hydroelectric power stations which together provide roughly ten percent of New Zealand’s electricity, and now I was standing at the upper end looking at the rocks. I found myself a spot at the middle lookout and waited. Ten to four, the first alarm sirens went off. Out of the area, out of the riverbed, in case someone should be foolish enough to wander down there. Shortly after that, once again. Then the gates opened.

At first you could only hear the roar of the water. Then the first basin filled, overflowed, and suddenly a raging current shot beneath me through the narrow rocky valley. An azure-blue torrent pressing through a gorge within minutes, a gorge that had looked almost harmless just before. This is exactly where the famous barrel scene from the Hobbit films was shot. The whole spectacle lasted about fifteen minutes, then the gates closed again and the water was on its way to the next station. Ten percent of New Zealand’s electrical power depends on this cascade, roughly half a gigawatt of average output, water dropping 28 vertical meters over one kilometer and standing at the beginning of an entire system.

On the way back I rode along the other side of the river and first thought that this would probably be the more boring route. It could indeed have been like that, until I came to the geothermal installations. Here I could have taken the road and would have been home much faster. Could have, would have, did not, and so I stayed on the trail and suddenly found myself in a completely different landscape. I rolled through a valley, along a stream that was deep blue-green and steaming. The stream carried water at around 60 degrees Celsius, a side effect of the volcanism here and one of the reasons I had come to Taupō in the first place.

Once you realize that in the upper ten kilometers of our planet there is more energy stored in the form of heat than in all fossil fuels combined, you only have to tap it. Our Earth is still, at its core, a slag ball that has never fully cooled, merely crusted over at the surface. And that is exactly what becomes so obvious here, in a region where the Earth’s crust is thin and heat, water, and tectonic unrest rise directly to the surface.

Almost a fifth of New Zealand’s electricity comes from geothermal energy, and the Taupō area is the true center of it. A substantial share of that geothermal power comes from here. Together with the hydroelectric power of the Waikato, this region therefore produces a remarkable share of New Zealand’s electricity from renewable sources, reliably, unspectacularly, functionally, around 28 percent of the total. On top of that there is process heat, direct thermal use, and all the things you do not see but which carry everyday life and industry.

No wonder you hardly see any wind turbines here. They simply are not needed with the same urgency. No wonder either that New Zealand draws a certain confidence from the fact that it needs no nuclear power stations and still generates large parts of its energy cleanly. And back home we are still discussing, in a backward-looking way, a renaissance of nuclear power, while collectively wetting ourselves over a wind turbine or a heating law, because gas burns with such a lovely blue flame and can supposedly be transported so safely halfway around the world. What utter nonsense. It could all be so simple if we did not keep allowing ourselves to be driven into an almost slavish dependence on combustion materials, by the traders who keep telling us how indispensable they are, and by decision-makers, not infrequently with the intellectual format of a Bavarian food blogger. If one thinks geothermal energy, hydropower, wind power, and solar power together, then it becomes abundantly clear that the direction has long since been there. Only one thing in this world is limitless, and that is human stupidity.

At some point the trail led me back out of this unreal valley, uphill and over the river back into Taupō. I will take another closer look at the area tomorrow, there are still a few places I would like to examine more carefully.

Today was a rather quiet day anyway. My backside still has not forgiven me for the ride, after the amount of blood I found this morning in my pajama trousers. The saddle, no padding, so today I rode more cautiously. Only into the village, to the museum, or rather museum and art gallery in one building. The woman at the desk seemed rather surprised that she had a visitor at all. I had the six dollars to spare. She apologized that the art gallery was currently closed, but if I was still in town on Thursday I would be warmly invited to the opening, there would be snacks, and artists had been asked to build dinosaurs out of materials found here in the area. I am tempted.

The rose garden apparently once won an award, the waka house was beautiful, and I found the dugout canoe impressive. After five minutes I was already back outside again. The weather was better, so I headed to the gym. Day pass, twenty dollars, but I could use the full twenty-four hours, so I could do another session tomorrow as well. The people here are genuinely nice, even though I again have trouble understanding them straight away.

Then came the highlight of my day. Out onto the lake on a sailing boat. It turned out to be a motorboat, the wind, you know. During the trip to Ngātoroirangi the captain dropped a few facts about the lake. Lake Taupō is the largest lake in New Zealand, the full name is Taupō nui a Tia or Te Taupō nui a Tia. The lake is of volcanic origin and fills the caldera of a massive volcanic system. It is about thirty kilometers wide, forty kilometers long, around 622 square kilometers in area, and on average about one hundred meters deep, considerably deeper at its deepest point. It is also important that the lake is so clear, with visibility depths of around fifteen meters, because it is so nutrient-poor. He said something about fertilizers and water quality, but by then I had already drifted off into a meditative state somewhere. Boats, you know.

It did not bother me particularly either that I was apparently the only single person on board. Around me, nothing but young couples. When I started paying attention again, I also learned that the Waikato River is the only outflow from Lake Taupō, and that more than thirty streams feed the lake.

After about forty minutes we arrived at the carved figure. Fourteen meters high, created over four years, sometime in the seventies, the 1970s, the Ngātoroirangi Mine Bay Māori Rock Carvings. The large main figure represents Ngātoroirangi, an important ancestor of Ngāti Tūwharetoa. The smaller figures around it represent tūpuna, ancestors, and kaitiaki, guardians. The work was created at the end of the 1970s by Matahi Whakataka Brightwell and a small team. Modern Māori art, but deeply rooted in the history of the region.

On the way back I was really only looking at Mount Tauhara, whose shape resembles a reclining pregnant woman and which is treated that way in the legends as well. I had to smile, in that sense.