All the support teams had campervans or trucks; husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, friends: they had to provide breakfast, lunch, dinner, footbaths, icepacks, table, chairs. All very exciting, and I'm sure tiring. Our trip was going to be a surprise for my friend when she finished the walk, because we had told her that we would be busy that particular weekend. – ''when'' … was the challenge. Of the 240 teams, the fastest competitors finished in 13 hours - they ran all the way to the finish, apparently!!! The last teams did it in 34 hrs. We didn't quite know where my friend's team were in the scheme of things.

So, we got there early – as in: middle of the night/very early morning. We couldn't be there for the start: Saturday was busy for us. Started baking right after an early dinner. Luckily had all the ingredients already, as I had made a similar cake, a few weeks previously. It is really simple recipe with luscious gooey dates, apples and shredded coconut. I decided to make the shredded coconut topping into a sort-of icing, and put green finger nails to the thumbs-up cake. At 10pm. on the Saturday night, the cake was cooling and the topping on, we set off, driving south toward Taupo.

It was raining when we got to Wairakei (checkpoint 6) at 1am on Sunday. My friend's support team were drip-feeding us information as to how the teams were doing, and how far they'd gone. Next, the walkers had to do 18km without support way up in the mountains. Then, checkpoint 7, up the hills in the dead of night, and then the finish in Taupo on the lakefront. The rains had set in possibly for the whole day, from the evening before. My friends team finished in plenty of time, early in the Sunday morning – bravo! Amazing fortitude, the walkers! - many people didn't finish the course, lack of electrolytes, sustenance, the darkness, lack of water, wrenched legs, twisted ankles, diarrhoea, fallen down, knocked unconscious, etc. - medical personnel support for aftercare, ambulances, paramedics, physiotherapists offering massages...

Suddenly hot and sunny in Taupo about 3 hours later, we took the chance to visit Huka Falls on way back to Auckland. The Huka Falls are a set of waterfalls on the Waikato River that drains Lake Taupo in New Zealand. Upstream from the Huka Falls, the Waikato River narrows from approximately 100 metres across into a canyon only 15 metres across. The canyon is carved into lake floor sediments laid down before Taupo's Oruanui eruption 26,500 years ago. This thundering 11 metre high waterfall is the most visited and photographed natural attraction in New Zealand. The sheer volume of water flowing skinny, narrow canyon amounts to 220,000 litres per second; enough to fill one Olympic sized swimming pool in 11 seconds.

Parked in the carparking area, and did a short walk into the bush. We heard the sound of thunderous roaring, and we were there. The rains had added to the volume of water, I'm sure. Very dramatic; Hukafalls jetboat was there too. Skimming the water, and doing swift turns, zig-zaging along... and a final flourish where all the passengers got slightly wet. I had been on one during my time in Queenstown, many moons ago, but, I had the memory of getting wet and loving it...

We visited Craters of the Moon, geothermal area, after that, also in the same general area. The geothermal activity north of Taupo, New Zealand, it is a part of Wairakei, the largest geothermal field in New Zealand, with a surface area of about 25 km2 which lies in the Taupo Volcanic Zone. A mixture of hot water, steam, hot mud and pumice is ejected into the air. Material may be blown up to 100 m, leaving behind holes or craters as deep as 20 m. The most powerful fumarole observed at Craters of the Moon occurred 1967; grey coloured mudpools “that bubble and burp as steam and gas escape through them.

It took about an hour, for complete circuit – along gravel and boardwalk paths. I don't remember having done this geothermal park in my youth, when we were in Rotorua and Taupo on excursion. So it was something new and exciting. Hopefully I'd be able to last out the walk on uneven terrain. It was a hot day, but...what added to the mix, were vents letting of smoke and clouds of steam. Hot, hot... hot. Fissures bubbling and boiling away in the terrain – hmmmm... don't fall in, was the quip! We made it back, and had a welcome drink at the end.

In hindsight, we could have done the visit to a prawn farm, Rock-n-Ropes and honey hive which we had visited on a previous trip, also just a minutes off the main motorway to Taupo. Murray did the Rock-n-Ropes on a drizzly afternoon, quite a long time ago. Slippery, trying to find a foothold, he scaled up a 30 foot telephone poles, and performed intrepid (he called it crazy, afterwards) activities – one such activity was climbing to the top of a single pole and then jumping of it... say what?... across to a trapeze, set a Herculean leaps' worth out of range on another pole! 

I was able to capture the leap on film... balancing on wet uneven ground trying to take aim with my camera and pre-judging when to take the shot... my one-handed photography effort.   Enough of reminiscence; we were already late in returning. Perhaps next time...