If you have a spare day, the weather is not playing ball, or you are simply too baked to ride, consider a field trip top Tarawera Falls.

Because they are a little bit of a project to get to, many people don't even know they exist, but they have to be among the most amazing things you can see in New Zealand.

The Tarawera River flows out of the lake down a beautiful watercourse, before plunging underground several kilometres downstream from the lake. A few hundred metres later the river emerges from the middle of a cliff!

There are two ways to get to the falls. A water taxi across the lake can be followed by a walk down the river to the falls - that is really the deluxe way to do it.

You can drive to Kawerau, visit the i-Site and pay a small fee to collect a permit, then drive about 15kms of gravel road to the falls.