Hiking Taranaki Falls
May. 19th, 2024 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerWhen we visited New Zealand last month we made a pretty busy day-trip to Tongariro National Park on the North Island. In just one day we hiked 3 waterfall trails and did two scenic drives— on which we saw at least 3 other falls... and we still had time for a dip in a natural hot spring at our hotel before dinner.
That day was so packed that I've had to catch up on the hiking with after-the-fact journals. Even that catch-up lagged with this month's trip to Los Cabos and Phoenix. Now I'm back to working the backlog. I described earlier today how we called an audible mid-morning in Tongariro with help from Elton John. After bailing out from hiking Waitonga Falls we drove down the mountain its south side, skirted around the base to the west side, then drove up its western flank to Whakapapa Village. Yes, that's it's real name.
From Whakapapa Village we spared little time getting on the hiking trail to Taranaki Falls. It was a long, relatively level trail skirting around the flanks of 9,177 ft (2,797 m) tall Mount Ruapehu. You can see a bit of Ruapehu in the photo above. ...And by being able to see (part of) it you can see that already the weather was better than what we left behind at the trailhead for Waitonga Falls. Indeed, you can't find gold in a silver mine... so why not leave the silver mine behind.
But was this trail leading to a gold mine? For much of the hike we were not sure. Social media trail descriptions and even photos left us uncertain what to expect. The descriptions were unhelpful factoids, like "The falls is over 10m high". Okay, does that mean 10.5 meters or 30? Is the water a trickle or a torrent? And photos on other trails we'd hiked already were just wrong. Like, we recognized the place in the photo... from another trail we hiked. So on this trail we weren't sure what to expect. I was prepped for a trail that was more rewarding as a form of a cardio exercise than the waterfall views. Then we rounded the top of a cliff and this came into view:
Yup, that is definitely "over 10m high". Though if I were given a budget of just 4 words to describe it, those aren't the four I'd pick. 🤣
Even better, the trail didn't afford just views of the falls from the top, it switch-backed down the side of the cliff to viewpoints at the bottom.
I made photos like this one from the trail near the bottom of Taranaki Falls. There was also an obvious use trail leading down to the edge of the pool. I took another many photos down there, too. Stay tuned for more!
Update: More photos from Taranaki in part 2.
That day was so packed that I've had to catch up on the hiking with after-the-fact journals. Even that catch-up lagged with this month's trip to Los Cabos and Phoenix. Now I'm back to working the backlog. I described earlier today how we called an audible mid-morning in Tongariro with help from Elton John. After bailing out from hiking Waitonga Falls we drove down the mountain its south side, skirted around the base to the west side, then drove up its western flank to Whakapapa Village. Yes, that's it's real name.
From Whakapapa Village we spared little time getting on the hiking trail to Taranaki Falls. It was a long, relatively level trail skirting around the flanks of 9,177 ft (2,797 m) tall Mount Ruapehu. You can see a bit of Ruapehu in the photo above. ...And by being able to see (part of) it you can see that already the weather was better than what we left behind at the trailhead for Waitonga Falls. Indeed, you can't find gold in a silver mine... so why not leave the silver mine behind.
But was this trail leading to a gold mine? For much of the hike we were not sure. Social media trail descriptions and even photos left us uncertain what to expect. The descriptions were unhelpful factoids, like "The falls is over 10m high". Okay, does that mean 10.5 meters or 30? Is the water a trickle or a torrent? And photos on other trails we'd hiked already were just wrong. Like, we recognized the place in the photo... from another trail we hiked. So on this trail we weren't sure what to expect. I was prepped for a trail that was more rewarding as a form of a cardio exercise than the waterfall views. Then we rounded the top of a cliff and this came into view:
Yup, that is definitely "over 10m high". Though if I were given a budget of just 4 words to describe it, those aren't the four I'd pick. 🤣
Even better, the trail didn't afford just views of the falls from the top, it switch-backed down the side of the cliff to viewpoints at the bottom.
I made photos like this one from the trail near the bottom of Taranaki Falls. There was also an obvious use trail leading down to the edge of the pool. I took another many photos down there, too. Stay tuned for more!
Update: More photos from Taranaki in part 2.
