I awoke at 7:45, an hour before my alarm, after 8 hours of sleep (most of the time, if uninterrupted, I will sleep 9 hours, so I’ll set an alarm to make sure I don’t go past). This was a good thing, as I had prioritized blog posts over Facebook posts during the last few days of laptop time. I wanted to share photos of my adventures, and it took a while to choose, arrange, and caption them.

I was a bit sad to leave my listing in Rotorua. It was a very comfortable and private space, and my hosts Diane and Mike were lovely. I packed up and used a free pass for the city bus that Mike gave me to get back to the InterCity depot and took the one-hour bus ride to Taupo.

Like Diane, my hosts Bee and Graeme were very accommodating of the fact that I was arriving by bus and getting around mostly on foot, and they offered to pick me up. I walked to a local bakery for a small sandwich and Graeme met me there and gave me a ride back to their house.

They have two spare rooms in their house, one with a queen bed and one with twin beds. The queen bed is the one they’ve listed on Airbnb, with the optional use of the room with the twin beds. When Bee showed me to my room, the one with the twin beds, I didn’t think, “Wait, what” right away. I guess in the moment I thought that I’d booked a cheaper room to stretch my Airbnb credit as far as possible.

I even saw the queen bed unmade in the other room, and Bee apologized that she usually has a tidier house but she has been fighting a chest cold for 3 weeks and gave in to her lack of energy. I didn’t put it together that that was the room I’d booked. I later realized when I looked at the Airbnb itinerary for tomorrow’s checkout time. I’m too tall for any twin bed, but I’d already gotten settled where there was much more floor space for all my stuff, so I didn’t ask to switch. I did provide the feedback, from the perspective of someone who understands Airbnb host responsibilities and guest expectations, that the room listed and booked is the one that should be delivered, and they appreciated that.

With my one day in Taupo, I knew I wanted to see Huka Falls. What I didn’t know about was the opening of the spill gates at Aratiatia Dam, with a viewpoint overlooking the resulting rapids. Graeme is 75 today and spending his birthday building a deck outside his home with Bee. He needed nails, and as much as he wants to keep moving, he recognized that he needed a break, so before going to the hardware, he drove me up to the dam and walked me out to the viewpoint to watch the opening of the gates and the rapids come down. Beautiful! He doesn’t make much of his birthday, but he said it was a treat to both see something he himself has been wanting to see and to share it with a traveler too.

Our next stop was a lookout point over Huka Falls and then he dropped me down at the Falls so I could first enjoy the view and then walk the hour-long trail path along the Waikato River and back into town. The trail ends at Spa Thermal Park, where you can park your car, walk a little ways through a park path, and find yourself in some free hot pools. There is construction going on there now to build a coffee shop and bathroom facilities and benched seating into the rocks to enjoy the pools. Seems a bit of a shame to commercialize the spot, and a dog walker in the park said as much.

It was another half hour through the park and back to the listing, and after an hour and a half of walking, I was pooped (my back in good shape, though!). I rested in my room until I got hungry.

As has become my custom over the last week, rather than go out to eat in a restaurant, I walked to a local takeaway for a veggie burger to bring back to the listing. Bee showed up while I was waiting for my order as she and Graeme had decided on a takeaway night. I ate and chatted with her while she waited on her order and rode back to the listing with her (it wasn’t far, but I had walked a lot!).

I chatted with Bee and Graeme a bit but spent most of the evening resting in my room and taking care of online business: bill-paying (regular life carries on…) and more Facebook photos of today’s sights.