Continuing – 50 reasons to visit and stay in Turangi for your September school holidays.

Start planning for your next holidays with 50 reasons to visit Turangi.

Yesterday TRM posted the first ten. Today are 10 more compelling reasons to stay in Turangi.

This is a 2025 update of the original TRM blog from June 2018.

Now, at long last, the tourist attractions of Turangi are being recognised again – i.e. admire Toe Paw Council’s new logo below:

So the following continues the 2018 report updated to 2025.

SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed manages everything at TRM) suggested TRM inmates submit their main reasons for staying at Turangi.  (This was after She admired a list of 50 reasons to visit Sweden.  So She applied it to Turangi.)  To try to be fair to other struggling wannabe tourist towns, She stopped it at around 50…  There are so many interesting holiday activities providing 100% pure holiday enjoyment that we have to limit you to 10 reasons per day to control your maximum blood pressure excitement levels and avoid stress overload and boredom burnout. 

Yesterday TRM listed the first 10 of 50 (yes that is fifty!) reasons tourists should visit Turangi and return again and again.  The first ten reasons are always the easiest…  Today we continue with the next 10 – 20 in no particular order…

11 – TONGARIRO TOURISM HUB Retail Cultural Experience

For those who cannot imagine that cultural experiences in Turangi could add any special value? Recently at a business meeting in the local Tuwharetoa FM radio station, the staff started off the proceedings with a sing-song! A powhiri or waiata ā-ringa. (I hope that is what it was?) What a hoot! Wonderful stuff. Everyone was buzzing. Where else in NZ would business meetings start with a warm fuzzies performance like that?

The photo below illustrates the purpose of the meeting with Doug Wilcox from the Lake Rotoaira Forest Trust updating their intention to lead the tourist revival of Turangi with wilderness bike rides and shuttle bus services to the Kaimanawa National Park as a genuine cultural experience, etc. Tourists want the bike trail to eventually link with the Tongariro River Trail and further north on the T2T to Toe Paw.

But in case you do not find out where to locate a cultural experience (?), TRM inmates replace it with their style of retail therapy in tackle shops. Turangi has two fishing tackle shops, each with their own special charm. First is the oldest tackle shop in NZ on Taupahi Road – Creel – temporarily closed with dedicated new management since our last report and now being refurbished with new kitchen etc. Everyone is waiting for the big reopening at the end of October. Second is Sporting Life in the town centre. Also have roving reporter Tim does his popular daily video chat from the river bank at various pools on the Tongariro River. Then there are several home-based tackle stores and fishing guides selling over the internet to provide an extraordinary selection and plenty of choices for a little tourist town – better than any other town in NZ.

12 – Skiing – New Zealand’s largest ski field was totally redeveloped with a new gondola – sky waka – photo above – now operating. So far the snow season has been OK. The last 2024 winter season may have been a dicky one (due to Global Warming?) ending with management issues but these have now been sorted in time for the 2025 ski season. But it does not have to be snowing as they can make the snow for you and family to enjoy the new kids “Happy Valley” facilities with more learner ski runs and adjacent facilities, cafes, etc. than any other in the South Island.  The gondolas improve access to the upper slopes up to the Knoll Ridge cafe, 2020m elevation, even on windy days when the ski fields used to be closed off.  What an enjoyable refreshing and memorable, affordable relaxing family day out just a 40 minute drive from Turangi, for photo images that last a lifetime.

13 – Cafes & Restaurants – Turangi has at least eight cafes at last count varying from typical cafes in town to the busy Coffee Container on SH1 to several others, all welcoming and waiting for you. All the competition between cafes ensures you will get good value wherever you stop. We must also comment on the best restaurant in town since we composed the 2018 reports. TRM inmates have been raving about the best dining out in the region at Hare & Copper Restaurant – located on Grace Road just out of town.

14 – Beaches – Fine pumice beach on the edge of Lake Taupo, no tides, safe swimming, boating (easy to launch trailers) off the beach or in river mouths nearby; what more could you ask for?  Yes, I know.  OK – you can also watch and fish for huge savage wild trout chasing smelt into the shallow edges where they are so easy to cast to (except when I go there).  The fresh clear lake water sourced from snow melt in Tongariro National Park and filtered through native bush and pumice via tributaries in the Kaimanawa National Park is almost becoming a rare commodity elsewhere.

How can tourists put a $$$ value on that?

15 – Pies – World famous pies from Turangi Bakery.  Ask any fisho or tramper or truck driver – they know! The pies are so nutritious they will keep you going for the rest of the day.  The pie shop opens at sparrow’s fart and has such a huge range they are known throughout the land.  SWMBO prefers mince, but the locals claim potato tops as favourites.

16 – Bike Trails – The Tongariro River Trail ticks all the boxes for a friendly easy-peasy tourist bike trail around the Tongariro River in a figure eight configuration over two swing bridges to provide a choice of 3 km loop with views over Lake Taupo to a 10 km loop up the river or combined at 13 km.

For keen bikers, a longer challenging 40 +? mountain bike trail (the length depends on the route chosen) takes 3 -4 hours from Tree Trunk Gorge. The route notes only available at TRM feature a very special unique place for the halfway drink stop. TRM cannot describe the route notes on social media as the trail is restricted to a chosen few TRM inmates! Long after you have forgotten the ride, we promise you will remember the drink stop! The number of elderly riders completing this trail on Ebikes confirms how popular trail biking has become.

Then there are more remote bike trails like the Timber Trail – 84 km over two days with a wonderful lodge for an overnight retreat.  Or for another day trip it is hard to beat Waihaha Trail about 50 km from Turangi up SH32 on the western shores of Lake Taupo to include a remote beach trip as well as the view over Tieke Falls.

17 – Wild Blackberries – One of the best places in NZ to stroll along riverside trails and collect wild organically grown blackberries in season. We can only promote this now after the blackberry picking season is over… The usual bucket will not be big enough so you may have to eat the overflow. Who would imagine wild blackberries would feature, but tourists rave about them. We daren’t mention wild mushrooms so you will have to read between the lines.

18 – Forests – Endless towering gigantic forests vary from natural forests with the full range of native species such as Beech, Rimu, Totara, Kahikatea and many others that SWMBO cannot identify. Turangi also has its own Redwood Park on the Tongariro River Trail.  Some of these more remote trails are in hunters favourite territory, so wear appropriate bright clothing. If the tramping tracks into the Kaimanawas – Urchins Track or Umukarikari Track – were in the South Island they would be one of the “Great Walks”. But in the central plateau region with three National Parks, they are just another track…

19 – Sculpture – Lookout where ever you go for fishy-themed sculptures from main road giant anglers to garage roof anglers to fancy finials to the fishy footpath, fishy letterboxes to giant flies to many more unique to Turangi – too numerous to list. The favourite sculpture for the Womens Fishing Tournament is a gate with a huge wrought iron trout. You will have to ask the lovely ladies from Taupo Fishing Club for their “trout-gate photo” as they would not allow TRM to post it… (copyright and other reasons?)

20 – Lakes – Such a wide variety of natural beautiful bush-lined volcanic lakes, from the largest lake in NZ – Lake Taupo – to the tiny hidden lake – Lake Rotopounamu (Greenstone Lake) to Lake Kuratau or to privately owned lakes (Lake Rotoaira – see image below) to a trophy trout alpine lake – Lake Otamangakau.  These may look over-full at maximum levels but that may also be because of displacement pressures caused by zillions of large trophy trout that inhabit these lakes waiting for anglers.

Lake O. is a man-made lake, or more of a large alpine puddle created at the exposed head-water swamp of the W(h?)anganui River as a hydro storage dam.  This shallow lake has now developed into our trophy fishery.  A magic place on a good day, not so friendly on a cold windy day.

In Tongariro National Park there are more – Tama Lakes are the main feature on the day trip from Whakapapa Village to the Waihohonu Hut off the Desert Road. There is even a summit lake on the top of Mt. Ruapehu. All scenic beauties with their own charm – they are so good that each could qualify as a tourist destination.

So that brings up 20 reasons to visit and stay in Turangi, but there are still 30 more compelling reasons that other tourist regions cannot compete with – watch this space tomorrow…