Finally, the weather was good enough to do the walk…..Awoke to see the sun rise over the eastern shores of the lake. Annelise dropped me off at the bus stop, encouraging me to make some friends…… ahead was an 18.5km walk taking in some spectacular volcanic scenery at altitude of 2000m. Arriving at base camp in a convoy of buses I realized that I wasn't going to be sharing the experience with a few other intrepid folks. The track ascended through grass and scrub into non-vegetated larva flows. The cloud cover increased and by 930 drizzle had started. Annelise was planning to do roughly the same route……in a plane. So we had worked out that she could wave to me on a fly-by. Cloud thickened, rain set in and I realized that this was not going to happen.

Meanwhile back at the lodge, the flight was finally called off at 130. This left Annelise a bit high and dry on the activities front, especially as it was tipping down at lake level. She tried to alleviate the boredom with the TV. Being New Zealand, there was a wealth of programming to choose from: four channels to be precise. Motorsport, discovery, Emmerdale and Jeremy Kyle.

Back on the mountain, the route across the craters was amazing, with vivid red rock in "Red crater" and Emerald Pools also living up to their title too. Particularly memorable was the warm earth at the summit, steam rising from vents all over the mountain and the constant whiff of sulfur.

The descent was long, but took in many different zones of vegetation: algae, grass, tall grasses, heather from Scotland, shrubs and finally lush forest with trees dripping with algae and lichens.

Annelise collected me from the i-site and we headed up to Rotorua (pronounced Rodoroooouh). We spoke to Kevin and Gillian on the way and arranged to meet for dinner.

Checked in to the Lakeside Rotoiti B&B: what an awesome spot! Beautiful house and an positively effervescent host, Graham. Had a cuppa with fellow guests, a French couple living in French Polynesia. She was freezing whilst we were burning up!

Kevin and Gill picked us up and we went to Rotorua for dinner. Had a great catch up over dinner, followed by a trip to the pub. Great to see some old friends from home and have a good gossip.