Huka Falls, Lake Taupo

As we journeyed south from Rotorua  through the constantly steaming thermal valleys we came to Lake Taupo.  Water is always a magnet. The sound of the river  making its own special music, building into great crescendos as it crashes below and its power,  as it pounds and eats its way through  the earth, always reminds me of the constant passage of time. How many people over hundreds, maybe thousands of years have previously stood in a particular  spot and just watched and listened - possibly even thinking the same thoughts?

Maori Hapu (sub-tribes) lived and worked in this area for centuries before the arrival of Europeans. They understood and made use of the geothermal landscape, cultivating and harvesting native fish and gathering kokwai (red  ochre) from the hydrothermically altered soil.

In the 1870s Europeans began to settle at the outlet of the Waikato River on the edge of Lake Taupo. As Sergeant Talty  (a member of the armed Constabulary Force 1870) then predicted the region's attractions gained international repute and Huka Falls became a "must-see" on New Zealand's tourist itinerary.
About 200,000 litres of water plunge nine metres over the great rock face of the falls every second-enough to fill five olympic swimming pools every minute. Such a momentous flow of water creates a dangerous undertow at the bottom of the falls  and this has claimed the craft of many river users foolhardy enough to try to navigate the falls.

Upstream of the falls the Waikato is clear and reflective. After plunging over the falls it picks up masses of tumbling air bubbles creating breathtaking colours and gives the falls their name  after the maori word for 'foam'. The colours of the water are truly ice blue. The flow over the falls is so strong it prevents the upstream migration of trout and native fish such as eels thus no eels in Lake Taupo.

As the 20th century progressed the Waikato developed into one of New Zealand's major electricity producing rivers. It supplies eight  hydroelectric stations and provides cooling water for three others, two of them geothermal and one of them thermal. The Waikato river system produces about fifteen percent of New Zealand's power.