Tongariro National Trout Centre

Take a fascinating half hour walk through these facilities beside the river. There is an underwater viewing chamber. Open 10am - 3pm.
Trout is not native to New Zealand, but fishing minded settlers thought it should be, and began introducing various species of trout here from the 1890s onwards. Numbers gradually increased to healthy fishable populations, managed in turn by the Tourism department then the Department of Internal Affairs. A hatchery here was so successful that soon Trout ova were being sent to Sydney as an export In 1926, the writer Zane Grey stopped and fished here on a nationwide tour, his subsequent book 'The Anglers Eldorado,

creating overseas interest in the new fishing ground. So much so that the Duke and Dutchess of York arrived for a fishing excursion the next year. By 1931, huts sprung up alongside the river, adding to the angler's accommodation Kowhai Camping spot.
Despite the occurrence of regular classic New Zealand setbacks like lava flows, floods and changing waterlevels due to hydro electricity development downstream, trout flourished here, and facilities grew up around it, the town of Turangi in the 1950s, the facilities of the National Trout Centre growing and changing hands until it's present day incarnation. Thousands of visitors including many school groups pass through here every year visiting the river walk, auditorium, displays and the underwater viewing chamber.