Hi all,

We travelled a few hundred kilometers up the road to Tongariro National Park. The scenery on the way was nice but not quite as spectactular as the Southern part of the South Island that we visited. We arrived late that evening and quickly visited the Infomation Centre to figure out what walks we could complete, there was loads. We camped out on the side of the road a couple of k's out of town (well, one hotel, one camping ground and a pub) and it was cold. I woke up freezing and the temperature that night, we later discovered was -1.

We completed a six hours walk in 4 hours and it was a good days tramping. The scenery was great with a volcano on one side and a ice capped mountain on the other. The volano was used as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings. Means nothing to me...!

The next day we completed two walks, one two and a half hour trip and one one hour up hill hike. Again it was good to be walking in the middle of nowhere. When we returned to the campervan we sneaked into the camping ground to use their beautiful boiling hot shower facilities. We left that evening for Taupo and a suitable sleeping place.

Bye for now

Miffy x x x