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Follow the Napier/Taupo Highway (SH 5) 17 km from Taupo. The highway bisects Opepe Scenic and Historic Reserve and there are car parks on both sides of the road. On the northern side a short walk brings you to a graveyard where members of the Bay of Plenty Cavalry, who died in an engagement with the Maori warrior Te Kooti and his followers were buried. Later, residents of Opepe Township and the Armed Constabulary were also buried there. Continue around the bush loop track through mature podocarp (rimu, matai, miro) forest - unusual in this region as so much was destroyed by the Taupo eruption of 186AD and later by fires and the woodman's axe. |
