Taupo te moana

Hello, all - this is Tom here.  This post will be mostly about Lake Taupo - Taupo te moana.  But first, there is pork.

Here is a pork shoulder, prepped with rub, ready to spend the next 8 hours in the oven in honor of my birthday.

The kids and Evelyn decorated for my birthday.  See the hand-lettered birthday banner?  Each letter has its own decorations.  Thanks, guys!

That night, some friends from the various bands I play in came over to celebrate.  Here are some photos of some actual Kiwis:

Full disclosure - one of these women is an American, but she's from Alaska.

Here is Aidan enjoying a pulled pork sandwich in my honor.

The next day, we finally took a boat out on Lake Taupo.  Here is Aidan pretending to steer the Fearless in the marina at the mouth of the Waikato River.

Here is Jasper, climbing onto the boat.

We are getting ready to leave.  It was a beautiful day for a sail on the lake.

You can see how clear the water is in Lake Taupo.

Once we got under way, we could look back at the town of Taupo and the volcano that rises behind it, Mount Tauhara.  That's the mountain behind our house that we've climbed a few times.  Our house is in this picture, but I'd be hard pressed to point it out.

Here is Aidan, enjoying the ride:

A cool shot with Tauhara over Aidan's shoulder.

Later, Aidan got to actually steer the boat.  He was told to aim for the mountain across the lake.  He did a great job.

Jasper was height-challenged, but managed to steer the boat, too, with some help from me.

These are my new sunglasses.  I don't usually wear sunglasses, but I broke down and bought some in Napier a few months ago.  Glad I had them today.

Here are the mountains we were aiming for.  That's Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and Tongariro, from left to right.  Ruapehu has the snow on it.  Ngauruhoe looks like Mount Doom.  Tongariro is the big shelf off to the right with the venting.

We came in close to the northern shore of the lake to see Maori carvings on the rock faces.  Here is our shadow sliding along the cliff.

And here is the main carving.  It dates from about 1980 and is a gift from a group of master Maori carvers.  It depicts a legendary ancestor of the local Maori from the 13th C when the Maori first settled New Zealand.

The rocks around the main carved face are also carved.  Here are some of them:

Here is the family, admiring the rocks:

This is the southern side of the lake.  The white cliffs are ash and pumice left from the last great eruption of the volcano under Lake Taupo. Pretty much everything here is pumice.  When the electrical crews came through our neighborhood to put in broadband, they dug into the ground in our neighborhood and left piles of white pumice everywhere.  It is amazing how thin the layer of dirt is above the pumice.

Here is the main competitor to our boat.  That's the Barbary.  We shook our fists angrily at them.

On the way back, we headed toward Tauhara - the peak is very recognizable and always greets us as we return to Taupo from a trip.

Here is a shot up the red sails of our boat.  Yes, that's a pirate flag.

It was cold and windy on the way back.  The kids went below deck with some other kids on the trip and tried to hit each other with plastic pirate swords.

It was a fun trip - we finally got out on the lake which we'd been meaning to do for a long time.  And we got to ride in the sailboat that we'd admired from the shore for months.  And it was my birthday weekend.  And I don't look a day over 40.