Best Western Parklands Motor Lodge Turangi

... wollten, kamen ploetzlich blau** Himmel und die Sonne zum Vorschein. Inn**halb von nicht einmal 5 Minuten ist das Wett** komplett umgeschlagen. Zum Glueck zum Positiven. Wir waren uebrigens auf 1600m. Ganz schoen hoch od**? Man hatte jedenfalls eine tolle Aussicht und es war ein bisschen kalt da oben.
Auf dem Rueckweg sind wir noch einmal um den National Park h**umgefahren um die Des**t Road zu sehen, eine d** hoechsten Strassen hi**, die haeufig wegen ...

... massive snow capped volcanoes that line the southern shores of Lake Taupo. Before calling it a day, we hiked along the forested cliffs of the Tongariro River and watched the sunset over Lake Taupo. This was one of the best sunsets we've seen yet. Hard to believe.



Our accommodation that night was a very large room with lots of amenities. We were given the room because the ...

... easy things [she] found impossible" Tramping (hiking), for example. Yes, I can jump off a bridge into questionable water, or hitch hike on a boat, but the idea of the Tongoriro Crossing gets my knees shaking, for many reasons. First, I'm not entirely sure I have ever walked for seven hours straight.... especially up some mountain, oi. I mean, when we go bouldering and have to walk up to the spot, I'm the kid who's gasping at the top (well, usually ...

... will also wave to passers by. "Oh, thats my friend she knew I was passing by I was told" Yes most of the passengers may be silver surfers but they know a corfortable and engaging journey when they find one. It only gets busy when you approach the Raurimu spiral - considered "an engineering miracle on completion to oversome the huge increase in gradient between Raurimu ...

Tongariro crossing - NZ best one day walk, 7 hours serious climbing up 'mordor' and 'Mt Doom' from Lord of the rings. Amazing views of volcano craters - still steaming!- and emerald lakes just magical. Onwards down south to Wellington to get the ferry over to the South island

The Waitangi Treaty gave us the good fortune of a day off & the chance to do the Tongariro Crossing. It's reputedly the best 1 day scenic walk in Nz located in National Park. Though not quite at Messners level, we had read enough in advance to know that we should be prepared for all conditions so armed to the teeth with sandwiches, empanadas & water we made the journey southbound over 4+ slow moving hours ...

... with more color. We loved this place and spent several hours exploring all the sites as well as shooting a few hundred more photos of mud bubbles in action. The Emerald Pool was the highlight of the walk, as it's a lovely blue clean pool with orange and white edges. This is definitely a worthy stop on the North Island. We continued southwards, checking out a huge geothermal plant which provides 5% of NZ's power. This place ...

... Before long the rain stopped and it was trying to be sunny, but otherwise, I was able to dry my poncho just enough to take it off for the last 45mins.  The last little bit of trek was all bush.  It reminded me a lot of some of the walks Shannon and I have been through 99 Steps.   Once at the bottom I took off my soaking socks and tried to dry them and my sweater (the sleeves) but within a few mins. the sky opened up again and it was pouring without hesitation.  The only shelter ...

... convinced of this. So far there are two aspects of New Zealand of which I am especially enamored. The first is that, despite a seemingly endless amount of dangerous terrain in this country, they go with the "using common sense to avoid injury or death is each person's own responsibility" approach, rather than the embarrassing contemporary American philosophy of "let's hurricane fence this area off because we're afraid somebody's going to fall and some ...

... Xmas cards, it was the first time all trip we've done anything like that and it was really nice to do.

We'd much rather have been on Lake Taupo taking advantage of some of the fantastic activities on offer, but frankly there was no point because it was raining and visibility was just horrible.

We flirted with taking a canoe ...