Lake Taupo

This webcam operates from the offices of Taupo District Council, right on the shores of Lake Taupo and just south of the Twin Peaks Motel. The image is of the lake looking south towards the volcanoes of Tongariro National Park. The camera is installed in the Council Chamber in an upper storey of the building. It will be refreshed every few minutes between sunrise and sunset (local time). Outside of these times you will see the last recorded image of the day.

If you have chosen one of those rare days when the weather is less than perfect, visit the LakeCam archive for a better view.

Lake Taupo is well known as the largest fresh water lake in the Southern Hemisphere,. It is a tourist haven renowned for its trout fishing, boating and swimming. What is not so well known is that is has formed within the giant caldera (collapsed crater) of one of the world's most active, violent and largest volcanoes - the Taupo volcano. This exists in a belt of active volcanoes which extend from Mt Ruapehu, one of three volcanoes on the southern shores of the Lake, to White Island in the Bay of Plenty. New Zealand's volcanoes along with most of the 600 active volcanoes in the world, are in a line bordering the Pacific Ocean, known as the "Pacific ring of Fire". This ring follows the outline of the Pacific Tectonic Plate.

Taupo began erupting approximately 300,000 years ago. The first and largest eruption (Oruanui Eruption) which produced the caldera occurred 26,500 years ago. This eruption ejected enough material to recreate three Ruapehu sized cones. The rapid eruption of so much material caused 700 sq km of the area around the vent to collapse forming the "giant caldera" which has now partly filled with water to form Lake Taupo. The cliffs around Western Bay were formed in this collapse, and the old land surface is now buried hundreds of metres below the floor of Lake Taupo which at its deepest point reaches 200 metres.

The second are more recent Taupo eruption occurred only 1,800 years ago, and was recoded as the world's most violent in the last 5000 years. At times the eruption column reached over 50km high (twice as high as the Mount St Helens eruption column) the eruption culminating in a catastrophic pyroclastic flow of hot ash and pumice that devastated 20,000 sq km of the central North Island. Material from the eruption reached high into the stratosphere and the effects were seen in the Northern Hemisphere sky as far away as China. This eruption took place from vents near the Horomatangi Reef now submerged beneath Lake Taupo.

Twin Peaks Comments

The Twin Peaks was our home while visiting Lake Taupo

Black Swans on Lake Taupo Comments

Black Swans on Lake Taupo

Umbrella Fern Comments

Umbrella Fern (Sticherns Gleicheriacene) at Tongario National Park

Tuetue Grass Comments

Tuetue Grass at Tongario National Park

Craters of the Moon Comments

Ferns, bracken, lichen, and moss

Huka Falls Comments

The Huka Falls are famous for the speed and volume of water rather than the height of the falls as the Waikato river pumps nearly 300,000 litres of water per second through this narrow gorge.

Waikato Falls Comments

The Waikato Falls are on the upper Tongariro River on the Central Plateau of the North Island.

Sheepdog at work - waiting for master's command Comments

This was a demonstration of sheep herding at a sheep station in the Mohawk Valley. Huntaways dogs bark. Heading dogs are silent while working.

See our visit to Napier

See our visit to Wellington

See our visit to Nelson

See our visit to Christchurch

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	Live pictures from Taupo.
	History of Lake Taupo.
	Taupo Hot Springs
	Lake Taupo volcano activity
	Huka Falls

Lake Taupo

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