We camped at a DOC camp just outside Tongariro NP which was very pleasant, unfortunatly we had one of the worse nights sleep ever and I some how managed to pull a muscle in my neck and was in agony! We decided to go to Whakapapa village and do a walk. Tongariro NP has 3 peaks and they are very pituresque, one of them had been used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films but as we havent seen the films we were none the wiser!! We did a walk to Taranaki falls which was really nice, for the first time in the North Island we started to appreciate the scenery around us. We got to the waterfall and the water was just so clear and it was so peaceful. We did another walk in the afternoon to some more waterfalls which were just as lovely. In the evening we stayed in another DOC camp in a field..it was the first time we had been in a campsite without anyone else in NZ! My neck pain got worse in the evening and Kam started freaking out and saying he was going to have to take me to hospital which made me feel a bit hysterical as I was in so much pain. We got up really early the next day so we could get to Napier, the drive there was really painful as every bend or bump in the road really hurt my neck!! When we got to Napier just bought some strong painkillers and some deep heat and it sorted me out nicely!!

We wanted to go to Napier as it has loads of Art Deco buildings as they had a big earthquake there in the 1930's and then when they rebuilt it Art Deco was all the rage. Also I have a distant relative in Napier which we were hoping to visit but they didnt reply to our email!!! ANyway Napier was really busy and thats about all we can say about it really...nice buildings?! We did meet a very cute cat on the campsite who kept jumping in Rodney and meowing if we didnt cuddle him! I don't think we would have bothered going to Napier if we knew what it was going to be like!