Whakamoenga Point could easily be Taupo’s best-kept secret. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
Whakamoenga Point is all of 10 minutes by car from Taupō’s town centre and a literal stone’s throw from the lake’s biggest drawcard, writes Tim Roxborogh.
The Central North Island has always pulled at me. It’s where my mother was born. It was also the first place I ever saw snow in the flesh, as a 6-year-old visiting the Desert Road. I can still remember throwing a pebble into a frozen pond with my uncle. The ice shattered and my little brain exploded. Fast-forward to my 20s and it was spontaneous games of touch rugby with my mates on the snow-covered golf course in front of The Chateau that came to be tattooed on to my brain, just as summertime adventures of Tongariro National Park’s world-beating trails in my 30s would later be. This was where I’d known, since forever ago, that I’d be celebrating turning 40.
And then a global pandemic happened. Remember that? I know we generally try to pretend it never happened. But sometimes the universe couldn’t care less where and when we plan to mark significant milestones. So we should accept temporary defeat and regroup a year later, while pretending the number 41 is as important as 40. After all, 21 is a bigger deal than 20…
I’d never really twigged that 41 is a full 20 years since that supposed ushering-in-of-adulthood party I’d thrown with the ill-conceived bouncy castle on a friend’s farm. It almost feels a bigger psychological deal being 20 years since turning 21 than it did turning 40. But pointless mathematical mind games aside, why shouldn’t your 41st birthday be in a place of near spiritual significance that somehow symbolises both your past and your future?
Everyone should be so lucky. And every Kiwi who hasn’t yet really explored the Taupō region in the Central North Island needs to set about rectifying that. For the big 4-0 that became the big 4-1, I set off with my wife Aimee, our 3-year-old daughter Riley, and Riley’s grandparents Kathy and Alan. Three generations, three nights and two fully packed cars on an Auckland to Taupō road trip. From nowhere, the traditionally glacial-paced driver that is Alan Palmer developed a heavy foot – it must’ve been the excitement of that new Waikato Expressway – and I swear we were in Taupō in record-breaking time. Not quite sub-three hours as that would involve law-breaking, but close to it as we pulled into Whakamoenga Point.
Just 10 minutes west of the Taupō CBD, the 23-hectare Whakamoenga Point is a gated community overlooking the northern reaches of the 616sq km lake. Down driveways of immaculate lawns and gardens, past hillsides of native forest, you’ll find The Point Villas.
Consisting of two villas – the two-bedroom Tatamoana and the three-bedroom Ngahere – The Point Villas have an almost Mediterranean feel on the outside, but take one step inside that front door and there’s little doubt where you are.
We stayed in the Tatamoana villa where a spectacular cathedral ceiling sits atop an open-plan kitchen, dining area and living space. Heavy old-world tables and cabinets, a luxury leather and wicker lounge suite, and almost gothic chandeliers give way to a central fireplace set against a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s like the best of the Central North Island in one magical snap-shot. Step out on to the balcony with the infinity pool and it gets even better: you’re perched on an elevated lookout, enveloped in glorious native bush, overseeing the country’s largest lake, with the snow-capped peaks of Mt Tongariro (1967m), Mt Ngauruhoe (2287m) and Mt Ruapehu (2797m) in the distance.
The two suites are either side of this shared space and the king-sized beds and walk-in wardrobes still left more than enough room for Riley’s port-a-cot. As for the ensuite marble bathrooms, Tatamoana has complete privacy, so make the most of those views, and the feeling of bathing in the forest.
Something we couldn’t see from The Point Villas was – as the crow flies – no more than a couple of hundred metres away. There’s plenty that is special about the Ngātoroirangi Mine Bay Maori Rock Carvings, but knowing these quite staggering artworks are only visible from the water makes them even more so. It’s like a secret garden where you are looking at a hidden door, but can’t quite see.
Through quirks of geography; of winding inlets and bays and tumbling cliffs, it doesn’t matter where on land you are around Lake Taupō, you won’t catch a glimpse of master-carver Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell’s works.
With complimentary kayaks for guests of Whakamoenga Point (as well as the use of spas, tennis courts, petanque, a basketball hoop and a whole network of bush walks), we persuaded Riley and her grandparents to join us for a paddle. It was my birthday and though there was much celebrating to be done back up at the villa, my idea of a great holiday always involves doing stuff. That stuff had begun in the morning with a bush walk along the shores of the lake. There’s a regenerative calm about being in Aotearoa’s native forests that I never tire of and the Central North Island has some of our most precious tracts of green.
After a midday spa surrounded by draping ferns next to the infinity pool, it was time for lunch before unlocking the shed to the kayaks. To reach the Ngātoroirangi Carvings takes approximately 15 minutes of paddling from Whakamoenga Point jetty, or you can take a boat tour from Taupō Boat Harbour. The grandparents equipped themselves well, while Riley was (mostly) content to take it all in from my lap while I successfully avoided donking her on the head.
Just as someone was about to say, “have we gone past it?”, there they were. Rising 14 metres from the lake is the image of Ngātoroirangi – one of the most important of all the ancient Maori navigators who is said to have guided the Te Arawa and Tūwharetoa tribes to the Central North Island from Hawaiki many centuries ago. “Ancient” is the word, because seeing that wall of rock makes you feel like you’re witness to generations of history.
Perhaps you are. It was across four summers in the late 70s that Whakataka-Brightwell and four fellow carvers brought his vision to life, and with the passing of time, one day these carvings really will be as old as they feel. And they’ll continue to be a part of what pulls people back to the Central North Island time and time again.
For more to see, do and explore in Taupo, visit lovetaupo.com
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