Climbing Mt Te Aroha – Day 13

Today we are at Te Aroha. We also want to climb the big mountain Te Aroha, which is overlooking basically across the whole Waikato region.

We are heading to the Te Aroha i-SITE where we grab a map that literally say around that building and keeping on walking up. We walk through the whole thermal park, which is actually quite nice. Te Aroha has a big geothermal activity here and they have massive hot pools which feeds into all the thermal hot pools of the area.

So we’re hiking up to Whakapipi Lookout on Te Aroha. Pretty much from the get go the walk is very steep. Although the walk is only 45 minutes, it’s kind of like an uphill blast. There is a lot of steps and it’s kind of steep and there is stomps and there is all these branches and roots and all those nonsense and it’s really, you know, it’s a challenging but fun hike.

There is a lot trees. The trees are overcasting the whole sky and you feel like you’re going through a Jurassic Park movie. It’s really amazing.

I lie the sort of rugged hikes. You know, the ones where the paths haven’t been well-maintained so there’s roots coming out of the path and there’s stones and rocks you have to scramble up. There’s the odd staircase that’s still intact so you climb up those but yeah, this is quite the scramble and quite cool.

And we eventually get to Whakapipi Lookout. Really cool views. You’ve just got the mountain you’ve just climbed straight below you. It’s a sheer drop because of how steep it is and that’s all forest. And then you have like the township of Te Aroha just in front of you and then there’s the whole farmland stretching as far as the eye can see ending with a horizon of mountains and just all sorts of pretty New Zealand stuff like that.

There is like a little platform there where you can just sit down and relax and enjoy the view. it was really mind-blowing so I was really happy to get there and to have a view all over. Like any uphill climb, the fun part is when you’re just rushing back down and you’re thinking like: “Aw, how easy is this? Aww.”

Te Aroha, apparently, is known for its geothermal activity. The actual domain, the park in the area has some natural geothermal hot springs underneath, which makes the pool, like the ponds and stuff in the park, quite steamy, and it’s especially steamy on on a cold winter’s day.

We drive back to Te Aroha Holiday Park, which is where I am right now in this video diary and this place has a hot pool. And we had really nice and relaxing evening eating the chocolate cake in the Jacuzzi.