Taupo

Baby coots last night. This morning, this.

The Maori say this beautiful lake is the pulsating heart of the great fish.  (The North Island was a fish hooked from the sea, in the creation story. It's a great story, and rather than do it badly, I'll just leave it at that.)

Taupo was named by the chief who discovered it (whose name happened to be Tia). Chief Tia thought the carvings in the cliffs on the side of the lake resembled his great rain cloak, Taupō-nui-a-Tia (Tia's cloak), shortened to Taupo.

I'm not as blue as the dot suggests.

I love that there was a chief named Tia, which makes so much sense in a land where everyone who isn't a bro or sis is a cuzzie.

The entry to the Taupo Public Library.

You can tell a lot about a place by such things as these. Taupo gets it.

Taupo is the 20th largest town in New Zealand with a population of about 24,000. It's also the largest freshwater lake in Australasia (and it's eel-less). The lake itself is a caldera (collapsed volcano) of the Taupo Volcano, and last erupted just 1,800 years ago. 

Huka Falls, just up the road ( oulda been a bike ride if I weren't such a weather weenie).

On and on northward mañana.

Happy Sunday wherever you are.  And don't forget to spring forward. (They don't do that here, and it's just fine.)