Chantilly's Lake Taupo

... to the edge &#8211; very scary. <br><br> Its freezing on the way up, we had hoodies on &amp; jackets &amp; were still cold! You then have to climb the red crater (approximately 2,000meters above sea). Once you get to that point you feel like you have achieved something, the sun is shining, there is steam coming from the mountain your own, &amp; the rocks are hot &#8211; nice to toast bums. However worse is still to come! There is a ...

... way. Around 5pm we turned our engine off as we were getting low on fuel. Ricardo, the police man said it will be a long wait and might also be over night so we had to keep ourselves warm. Lucky for us we had a duvet in the boot. <br>By 9pm it was so cold and the snow was nearly a foot deep. Ricardo came knocking again to say that it is so bad that the army will properbly come and rescue us. He ask if we were warm enough but becasue our heater ...

In the morning after another night of heavy rain, we decided to just put on our rain macs and head out in the cold. We hiked up a short trail to a beutiful thermal pool on Rainbow Mountain and that was even before 9am!<br><br>We then travelled through Waitotapu to look at the mud pools bubbling away. We then decided to go a hort way off of the main road to Orakei Korako, as it is ...

... play area which was also heated. Some of the pools temperature were 41 degrees and went down to 25. This was truly relaxing and after we had a bite to eat we decided to go for a drive in search of some snow cause it didn't look too far away after 1 1/2 hours driving we decided we weren't going to find any so headed home for some dinner and bed for an early night.

... front of the "south crater," looking all the way back at Doom. From there down we walked down an open ridge looking out over Lake Taupo. Beautiful. The final three km were a brutal walk through the trees, but only because our feet were destroyed. Kristen's got a blister the size of a walnut on her foot. Hey, no pain no gain. So why is the Tongariro Crossing a must do? What makes it so good? 1 ...

... removed the pillow case while you were asleep. It aint the best! It was also extremely hot in Taupo, we're talking close to 30 degrees celsius, and we had no air-con or even a fan so we kind of just melted into couch we had in the cabin. Aside from these fairly minor complaints it was all good at the camp site and we were there for 2 nights. Our first afternoon in Taupo was just spent having a quick wander about the shops, re-familiarising ourselves with ...

... rive, je m'imagine l'éruption. Sous toute cette étendue d'eau, à perte de vue, se trouve une bombe naturelle hyper puissante. En témoigne les ash stones que l'on peut ramasser sur la plage. Ce sont des petits cailloux qui flottent su l'eau ! Ils ont été formés suite à l'éruption de Taupo. Des tonnes et des tonnes de cendres ont été expulsées et sous les nouvelles conditions de température et de pression, les cendres ont formés ces ...

... for free, but didn't know that the trail from here also led to Huka Falls, to which we'd planned to drive. We changed our minds then and decided to combine the two - changing into swimming gear before heading down the grassy hills to the Waikato River and turning downstream for the falls. We passed Hot Water Stream, where a group of local teenagers were swimming, and pushed on along the track for around an hour as it wound its way through pretty forest under hot sun until ...

... We stayed by the river in this campground area called Reid's farm. I took a shower in the campervan, but by vincent's turn, there was no more water left! So he didn't manage to bathe. In the night, the temperature suddenly dipped (as it rained a little) and it started to really freeze. We felt soo cold! No more freedom camping for us anymore, definitely need power sites so that we can have a heater on.

... we were heading off to Wellington, and the whole room was getting up - so we didn't have to worry about noise. Tara's ankle had swolen up over night to about 3 times its normal size and it really hurt her to walk on it - dunno what she is gonna do for the next week or so cos it looks really bad, probably sprained or something. The drive down to Wellington was pretty boring to be fair, everyone was hungover, so it was pretty quiet and we ...