Powderhorn Chateau Mount Ruapehu Ohakune

... a lot of it was where Lord of the Rings was filmed and the mountains were covered in forest which looks really different to the lakeland fells! As I got nearer the central plateau you could see the volcano's looming in the distance, it was a beautiful day again and great for a drive through this amazing countryside...<br>Apart from rain on saturday morning I had beautiful weather in Ohakune too and got in a day and half on the ...

... as the weather was so bad we had to turn back just under halfway across the crossing.<br><br>Despite the fact that we had the proper gear with us, everyone was completely soaked through and saturated by the time we came off the mountain. To say Louise was impressed is the understatement of the trip so far...still no chance to wear that new bikini!<br><br>Back at Okahune we spent a small fortune sitting in the local laundrette constantly feeding ...

... log fires, an in house chef, a kitchen the size of most hostels, log cabins - the lot - for about 10 yos a night. It's great. Small compensation for the day that it was though. I ask Natalie - the still awesome driver for a recommended jog. I run down hill for about 30 minutes - including one very long steep hill - towards an old mining town with a wonderful curving rail track. IN the distance under the clouds I spy a dormant volcano - a ...

... Ketetahi hot springs and then down through some bush to the bus......I completed it in exactly 7 hours, with probably 1 hours worth of short breaks for snackettes along the way - the hardest part was the 6km at the end - all down hill, no breaks - it was relentless especially on my aging knees. The pictures speak far more about the place - it was spectacular - hard work but worth it. and the hot tub at the hostel that night was also very welcome!

... is probably the 20km long Tongariro Crossing, reputably the best one day walk in NZ. As soon as we got settled down at the caravan park, we sorted out transportation for the Tongariro Crossing the next day. The walk starts at a different point than it finishes. Since we still had all afternoon free, we decided to do a few shorter walks around the village. We had walked probably 200m when it started to pour down, we were lucky we were still close, so we had no trouble ...

Ok so we are slightly behind on the old blogs cause the weather has been ace the past few days and who wants to sit in a stuffy internet cafe telling people back in Scotland how nice it is here, while missing all the nice weather?! Not me! No offence tho! So as you can tell, it is raining today and we have sought out this internet cafe to catch up with our blog and email. This is Sarah btw! Ohakune was a nice, quite, one ...

... were supposed to catch the 5:40 a.m. bus to the starting point, but neither of us had a watch, and thought the other was watching the time, and the bus drove past without us! Luckily there was another pick up at 6:15 a.m.. It was quite chilly and very early in the morning, but we woke up quickly. The reason to get such an early start is because there are so many people on the trails as it is very popular. But to tell you the ...

... that day. I only wish the Kiwis had copied our idea of a pub at the bottom serving hot drinks"). It was a spectacular walk with amazing views of the mountains all around and definitely a place to go back and visit. Mt Doom looked just as it does in the film although we forgot the ring so there was no real point in climbing it anyway. That evening we got back and took very long showers before retreating to the bar to enjoy a beer and an open fire.