Tongariro National Park was our next stop on the way down the north island with Fran still travelling with us and the van we bought in Aukland running really well. The park is so breath-taking, especially against bright blue skies it centres around three active volcanoes, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu, which erupted in 1995 and in 1996. You can see the lava flow diagrams around the lodge we stayed in which tell you where to run to in case of another eruption! We did two hikes here, the first was an afternoon hike to some pretty cool waterfalls followed by lots of wine and beer at the Chateau Tongariro next to our lodge. The second hike was a bit more difficult, a 5-6 hour hike up through some dense forest, over a very deep fast flowing river (uncrossable sometimes due to high rain fall - we all came out with wet feet but made it!!) Then we headed on up the mountian which was completely covered in snow so were we up to our calves and freezing! With about an hour to go a blizzard started and really impaired our visability, this was pretty worrying but we kept going and thankfully hit a mountain road and hitched a lift back to our lodge feeling like real arctic hikers!!