So soon yet I'm back.

Hello and welcome once more, since I have a bit of free time and am currently sat in a nice warm common area on a rather comfortable sofa I thought I might sit back and finish off the end of the north island, so I will.

I left you all in Rotorua, a fascinating place. Huge amounts of thermal activity including some of new Zealand youngest volcanoes and wotnot. Hot springs, massive smoking lakes, boiling mud, all number of interesting things, and yet my overriding memory will be that the whole place smells. Seriously, the whole city constantly smells of sulpher and other unpleasant gasses. We visited both Waitopo and Waigamou thermal parks (spelling there will no doubt be wrong) which were the 2 main ones we were advised of, also there are hotspots in the city centre itself. Its hard to explain a lot of the stuff so just take my word that its bizzare and wait for the pictures (one day). We also managed to finds a river that was heated by the springs and spent an afternoon relaxing in a riverbath type thing. Other than that the place smells and I wouldn't invest long term there as quite likely it will all explode soon.

With everything in roturua costing money we decided to make a break for it and move on to Taupo. Not much in Taupo city itself, though I did storm to a tremendous victory at mini golf over Paul. Also saw huku falls and a couple of other little bits. After this headed to the more southern end of the lake itself. From here climbed mt urchin and got decent views over the lake and the tongariro mountains. From here made the decent south to wellington. Stopped in Levin, my technical birth town, got told by the fuzz to move along as apparently taking pictures of a suburban housing estate is suspicious, and went on after staying with friends to our first wellington visit.

Overall, wellington is a thugherly pleasant city, lots of nice buildings and a pleasant harbour, but again just a city. Since I had the afternoon there I pottered around doing not much but having a good look. Zoo was too far out since I had no car for the day and just wanted an easy day anyways.

Then our trip took us back north to tongariro. We has a main objective here which was to the do tongariro alpine crossing and 2 days to kill. Since got up late the first day instead did the Tama lakes. This was still a massive climb up a mountain in the vague hope there was a lake on top, pleasantly there was, and looked pretty damn good. Then came the day of the tongariro alpine crossing. 18k walking up a mountain, between mt doom (does have actual nz name not just LOTR) and mt something. In the summer this is thugharly pleasant I'm told. Everyone we spoke too told us in winter as it is we would not be able to go past the snow line without crampons and iceaxes and proper winter training. Nevertheless we set off in high spirits. The morning was good weather and made waaay past the snow line and to the southern creator on the top. We probably would have made the whole crossing but the weather turned and the clouds rolled in. Unable to see more than a few meters, getting Increasingly soaked and cold, we were forced to throw in the towel and climb back. Still, we made its decent distance and what we saw was pretty awesome. Also, found out one does simply walk into mirror. 3 times we were right next to mount doom. Don't know why they all had so much difficulty.

After this back to wellington. Climbed mt Victoria for view across Wellington, found out it is a remarkably windy place, and then left the north island by ferry across the cook straight bound for the south island and my next blog installment.

As always sure I've missed lots but may tell you one day if I remember.

Much love