Gary was still very excited about camping when he woke up at 6.30, despite the fact that his brand new self inflating mat had deflated during the night and left him on the ground.

He was in the sea again before brekkie and he did lovely dippy(ish) eggs and marines (soldiers to most people!).

We packed up camp and headed back towards Rottenrualand. We stopped just outside the town at Redwoods and walked the quarry look out track through various types of forest, mostly plantations which were started in the early 1900's.

We continued our journey again towards Lake Taupo, NZs biggest lake. We stopped at Huka Falls, which were spectacular from a distant look out and incredible close up. They are a result of the longest river in NZ being squeezed through a gap in the rocks 15m wide. Some 9000litres per second and enough to fill 5 Olympic sized swimming pools per minute. Suitably impressed we headed off in a southerly direction.

On arriving at Taupo we visited the isite to enquire about camping on the edge of the lake, only to be served by a lady who was clearly in the wrong job. Put off by her grumpiness and lake of enthusiasm we decided to push further south to the Tongariro National Park. Taupo redeemed itself somewhat by providing Gaz with the best flat white he'd had in NZ to date.

We cruised into the national park on the edge of some dark rain clouds and on fumes in our petrol tank. I wasn't particularly concerned, but Gary wasn't happy that I'd added up the mileage incorrectly, underestimating the distance by 40ks.... Neither here nor there! I was happy to see hills with snow on them. We filled up and headed to the Adventure Lodge and Motel, where we had a booking for the following two nights. Fortunately they had space and we booked in for an extra night.

After checking out the local eating options we settled for a burger, chips and beer for $15 each, although the bill was more by the time you'd added some more drinks! Having discussed the weather forecast with Lorraine here at the Lodge we decided to do our walk a day early and make the most of some good weather. We packed up ready for our tramp and had an early night.