CAMBRIDGE NEWS | 1
THURSDAY JANUARY 9, 2025
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JANUARY 9, 2025
A Karāpiro cruise By Mary Anne Gill
American cruise ship tourists Joy Littleton and Lori Ionnitiu saw the excursions available to them when the Seven Seas Explorer docked in Tauranga on Sunday, and it was the Waipā experience which stood out. “I’m a novice vegetable gardener and I wanted to see what people ate,” the Tennessee woman said as she tucked into a red kūmara, part of a salad served to her and the other 20 passengers at Lake Karāpiro. Rain and wind on the day saw numbers trimmed from the planned 36. Two days before - on the ship’s northward cruise to Auckland – 13 tourists took the tour which Mighty River Domain site manager Liz Stolwyk said was the first of several she hoped to host at Karāpiro. Other options available for the tourists, who pay anything from $15,000 upwards for the cruise, are a Tauranga highlights and Māori culture tour, Rotorua, Lake Rotoiti, Hell’s Gate Mud Bath and private tours around Bay of Plenty to see kiwifruit operations. Grayling Littleton, a sweet potato connoisseur said he had only ever seen
These cruise ship passengers braved Sunday’s chilly conditions at Lake Karāpiro. They were pictured with, second from right site manager Liz Stolwyk and beside her Graeme Smith. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
orange ones before and was impressed at the red variety which his wife told him had fewer calories. “It’s not like me to like something that’s good for me,” he said. Lori and husband Nick from Virginia had other reasons for choosing Waipā. She grew up in the mid-west and has always loved walking and saw the Mount Maungatautari option and selected it with very little input from her husband. “I do what I’m told,” he said.
It was described as a walk along forest trails seeing endangered birds, tuatara reptiles and giant weta and finishing with a climb up a tower to see creatures in a tree canopy. “I didn’t want this to be a sedentary tour,” she said. The icing on the cake was a visit to a working dairy farm in Roto-o-Rangi where the opportunity to see cows close up and personal was a first for both couples. Joy had already marvelled at the chance to stop on the side of the road and pat cows.
While cruise ship tourists have ventured into Waipā before, Stolwyk says this tour in association with Smith Tour Company was the first to involve Karāpiro, Sanctuary Mountain and the dairy farm. The excursion is on the edges of what is possible – the ship docked at 8am and left at 5.30pm. A near 100km trip over the Kaimai Range to Pukeatua – via the Arapuni Dam on Friday and Putāruru on Sunday – bit off a huge chunk of that. Stolwyk said she hoped Leona and Graeme Smith - owners of Smith Tour Company and long-time associates through their agricultural connections – could make tweaks to the itinerary from feedback received. “I’m keen on a boutique Cambridge shopping experience for those who may not want to go to Maungatautari or a dairy farm,” she said. Safely back on board on Sunday, Joy told The News, as they set sail for Napier on their 14-day cruise ending in Sydney next week, that she loved the experience. “While the natural beauty and scenery is spectacular, we are finding that the people are the most special part of our visit,” she said. That was music to Stolwyk’s ears.
Now you cross it, now you don’t By Mary Anne Gill
It was good while it lasted and well appreciated. That’s the view on the re-opening of the Karāpiro Dam road between December 21 and Sunday night when it closed again for several months. But two teenage boys from Cambridge High School, who live on either side of the dam, are now wondering how they will catch up
with each having nipped across to go fishing and swimming together during the break. The 16km trip via SH1 and through Cambridge and Leamington makes it a long way around for them now, they told The News. The closure has been well signalled to lake users including competitors in next week’s national Waka Ama championships. The dam road has been closed on and off since 2019 – intermittently
opening over the summer periods when workers are on a break and at other times - for Mercury’s $90 million Karāpiro Hydro Power Station upgrade on Waikato River. Three new power generation units housing hydro turbines which make electricity from the river’s force will provide an additional five megawatts, enough for 19,000 homes. The third one should be in place later this year and the road – owned Cars cross the Karāpiro Dam road on Sunday, the last day it was open for a while. by Mercury – will reopen then. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
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