Tawhai Falls in Tongariro National Park - Day 314© NZPocketGuide.com
Tawhai Falls in Tongariro National Park - Day 314

Tawhai Falls in Tongariro National Park – Day 314

© NZPocketGuide.com

Day 314 on the Road

One of the Best Waterfalls in the Tongariro National Park!

Today we are checking out the Tawhai Falls in Tongariro National Park before heading to the Timber Trail Lodge. If you like this video and want to see more 365 Days: 365 Activities in New Zealand then head on over to our epic YouTube Channel!

So this morning it’s raining like hell right here Ohakune, it’s absolutely atrocious it is one of the worst weather we have seen on our entire trip and we’ve done quite a lot under really bad weather so that is going to be an interesting one.

Today we’re gonna be seeing a beautiful and taking a rainy roadie to the Timber Trail Lodge.

This morning it is pouring down with rain. i mean, honestly it’s dreadful weather outside so we hit the breakfast bar of the Kings Ohakune and settle down for some good food. Because we don’t have much of a plan today we get the time to catch up on a few things including Laura’s tax refund. She can’t really be SASSED doing the whole paperwork thing with IRD so she decides to go on the taxback app and do everything from her phone.

It’s pretty handy from what I see she just clicks on a few things put a few information and then with here phone camera take a picture of a few documents… have you noticed there’s the queen of England right here, and then send all of that to Taxback.com then she adds a few more information and here you go.

SHEEP, that’s a pretty good refund. That’s more than what I get.

Boom that’s how you make $842 just over breakfast.

Thank you taxback.com.

Woohoo not only am I making it rain today but New Zealand weather is pretty rainy too so we find ourselves a quick activity to do on the way to our final destination today which is the Timber Trail Lodge. That was the pitstop recommended to us at the bar last night.

5 minutes without rain right here, so we decided to stop at the waterfall which is just on the edge of national park it’s on the way toward the Timber Trail Lodge where we’re finishing our day today. It’s called Tawhai Falls, is that correct?

Yep.

It’s called the Tawhai Falls and hopefully, it’s not gonna be too rainy it’s going to be Ok.

The Tawhai Falls walk is about 4km from Whakapapa Village and it’s a super quick walk taking about 15-20 minutes to complete.

But when you’re me taking photos of absolutely everything which is looking really amazing under the rain right now, it will take a good hour, so I’m taking pictures of loads of amazing rain and moss which looks super vibrant after all this heavy rainfall that’s we’ve had.

Oo, that’s cool. Look at all that moss.

The way toward the Tawhai Falls is an amazing beech tuatua forest which is native to New Zealand and it’s again, one more forest that surprise us. It’s absolutely crazy the wealth of variety of vegetation all around this country, I mean I feel like I’m saying this thing every single day at the moment.

Plus, what I really like about walking under the rain is that you get to see the forest in a complete different light I really like the fact that all the moss is dripping with little drops of water it makes for some amazing pictures.

I know we look like really crazy people taking pictures of moss all around the place but New Zealand really turns you into a nature freak.

But we are here for the waterfall and we are not disappointed, this waterfall is absolutely raging with water and it’s because it has been raining so much lately.

This is only the first lookout overlooking the amazing Tawhai falls and the falls have been formed flowing over and ancient lava flow. This lava flow comes from Mt Ruapheu which is that giant volcano that you guys saw us hiking, or actually taking a chairlift up, the other day and just check out the video linked up in the cards above for that one.

After checking out the falls from above, we then continue on the track to get to another viewpoint showing the falls from below.

This is definitely my favourite view of the Tawhai Falls and you get a really awesome perspective of the falls a little bit further down the river making for a picture opportunity and the river is really raging at the moment.

That’s a big waterfall with the latest rains.

We spend quite a while taking photos and actually trying to figure out how this was actually a filming location for The Lord of the rings you really have to use your imagination on this one. But this was actually the pool where Gollum was being aimed at by Faramir’s archers in one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

But the rain is really hitting us hard now so we decide to make our way back along the track which luckily isn’t that long as we said before.

It’s raining a lot and the equipment which is hidden right here did not like it so much. So hopefully we’ll get to dry it repair it change some parts do whatever we can to make it work again.

Once in the car I get the time to check a little bit the camera and I figure out it’s just gonna be needing a bit of drying.

So we’re back in the car Laura is checking her pictures, see if she got some good ones for you guys and we are off to drive toward the Timber Trail Lodge because tomorrow we are tackling the Timber Trail which is one of the best bike rides on the North Island hopefully the weather is going to improve because it’s pretty rainy.

Tawhai Falls is a great pit stop on our way out of Tongaririo National Park but there is tonne of walks to do in the area in fact we did write an article on NZPocketGuide.com of the 13 Walks to Do around National Park and Whakapapa so we’ll link up to that article in the description below this video make sure to check it out if you plan a trip in the area and want to save money and see amazing sights.

We are making our way toward the Timber Trail Lodge. The Timber Trail is a really famous bike ride located on the west side of Lake Taupo. And because the Timber Trail is two day long there is a big lodge right in the middle for people that just want to glamp it out and not having to rough it out in the New Zealand wilderness.

At the lodge, we get to meet the team from Epic Cycle Adventures which are gonna be providing us with all the equipment we need for this epic bike ride, they give us all our bikes and make sure that they are fitting to us and they also give us something amazing, which is this GPS tracker checking up on us every 15 minutes making sure we are on track and we are keeping moving so they’ll be able to keep track on us as we’re going and make sure to be on time to pick us up at the end of the trail.

After that we get the time to play a few more board games over the fire and treat ourselves to an awesome home cooked meal yes that’s right at the Timber Trail Lodge along with your accommodation your hosts are actually cooking a homemade meal just to make sure you are fuelled up for you awesome bike ride tomorrow don’t miss it. It’s amazing.

So that’s it, tomorrow we are gonna be hitting the Timber Trail for the final day of the Timber Trail the Timber Trail is 2 days long we are just doing the one day though but it’s still 45km this has to be the biggest bike ride we have done on this trip so far. It’s gonna be a challenge. So you will not want to miss it join us then!

Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter