A lively night with good conversation with Craig and Cathy over dinner hearing about their lives along with how they ended up with 5 alpacas and Charlie the dog.
Cathy recommended another good walk for us this time on the W2K trail, one of the Great Lake Trail's northern sections, a shared mountain bike and walking trail adjacent to the Lake with access to the Headland Loop, going up and over the peninsula between Whangamata Bay (the W) to Kinloch (the K) - in all a round trip of about 12 miles.
We started in Kinloch passing its small marina and upwards to the wooded and shaded trail, which was a godsend as it was a sunny and cloudless day with temps expected of 23 degs. The trail up gave us some lovely views of Kinloch, a lakeside bay. We made the lookout for our lunch stop in searing heat and no shade so quickly ate everything and retreated to the woods. Taking the headland loop we had views over all three sides of the northern end of the lake and, on this beautiful clear day, the view over to the National Park. Taking in all the vistas we completed the loop and made our tracks back to Kinloch as unfortunately it was a one way trail to Whangamata Bay with no transport back to Kinloch.
Back in Kinloch we went for a paddle to cool ourselves down before driving home on deserted roads and having dinner with Craig and Cathy again.
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| View along the road driving to our start point. The Tongariro National Park from a distance. |
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| The Tongariro National Park with snowcapped Mount Ruapehu. A hike up it is planned soon. |
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| Start point Kinloch looking towards the peninsula walk |
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| Looking back to Kinloch |
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| Half way point. The bench has all the names of the people who worked to make the trail. |
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| View of Lake Taupo from the Headland Loop trail |
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| Three's company, four's a crowd. |
Oooh I say!
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