Ruapehu Golf and Country Lodge Ohakune

... mountain turned out to be a special effects film guy that worked on Lord of the Rings and is about to start on The Hobbit... his boss has an Oscar on his mantlepiece!!! I made friends with the guys that ran the hostel and they invited me for drinks on the friday night... although I did feel a bit like I was in a sixth form common room! On Saturday night I met a group of people in the hostel, all from the UK that live in Auckland ...

07.06.09:Time to leave Wellington, driving on the Kaiti coast. We stopped at Southwords vintage cars museum. Any boys' dream place. There were loads of very cool vehicles:cars, planes, bikes, bicycles...Our favourite was definitely the gangster car of the 50s:anti-bomb carpet, bulletproof glasses, windscreen that you can lift and stick your gun out and shoot. Another favourite was the Do Lorean from Back to the Future. There ...

... of what could've been today in Tongariro. The way back up the hill is painful and draining. Not helped by the busy road - with trucks and mad New Zealand drivers. Back alive - I get into the shower and relax with a pint and dinner. Early night after that - set for the trip to Wellington the next day - which is on the south of the North Island. Ready to cross over to the much lauded South Island. Will wait and see. On my iPod Galway Girl - Mundy

... natuerlich eingentlich mal gar nix zu tun hat. Die anderen 6 Leutchen unserer Truppe sind in 2er Kanadiern unterwegs, ich als Single habe mich dann lieber fuer ein Kayak entschieden. Alle Sachen werden in wasserdichten Tonnen verstaut und gut festgezurrt...damit beim Kentern nix verloren geht...Aha... Gegen 11:30 Uhr, nach einer kurzen Einweisung, werden wir dann auf den Fluss gelassen und koennen sogleich an der ersten Stromschnelle unsere ...

... wouldn't improve for the walk, but when we woke up early next morning (we had to leave at 7am) the weather was fine. In fact, on our way to the start of the track, the bus driver told us that we were extremely lucky as the weather was supposed to be excellent that day, and it had been raining the whole week before that. Arriving at the track it became apparent that this would be no lonely walk, hundreds of people were already on their way and tons more were ...

... cabin right at the end of the campsite which was bordered by a trickling stream. When we arrived the weather was really hot so we relaxed on the grass in front of the cabin to take in some rays - and by we, I mean me as Roar is a shade monkey and I am the sun worshipper! LOL! Anyhoo, Roar was more excited by the fact that we had Sky TV in the cabin, but that was very short lived as we shared the dish with the other two cabins ...

... on ok driving it apart from it having a useless automatic gearbox. It has just about enough cupboard space to say it has a kitchen and we've been cooking it it alright so far and have picked up a cheap fishing rod so will hopefully have some fresh fish for tea once we get to the coast! Better head off, the openroad beckons! Hope everyone is well back home Lots of Love Jonny and Hatty

... we were at the top and at its base. If we were more ambitious, we could have climbed to the top. But we didn't even consider it. It seemed to be straight up and down. We continued on and got our first glimpse into the valley on the other side of this volcano. We then started to hike towards Mt. Tongariro, and could finally see the beautiful red colors start to emerge on Mt. Ngauruhoe at the backside of the volcano's opening ...

... at Ohakune in time to grab a takeaway pizza and meet in Seamus' room for cards and drinks. On Saturday we decided to head out on the town and the following day we took in the amazing sights including some film locations for the Lord of the Rings movies. Roll on Christmas when we take a month off to travel the North Island :)

... that I just spent £120 getting repaired. Hm. After a dozen zoom-out, wipe, zoom-in cycles, it was still wet. It then showed a mist, which turned out to be on the inside of the front lens (not filter, objective lens). Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. At this point, having seen the attention I was paying to my camera, the father of a family group came up to ask my view on a phenomenon in their small digital. A lot of pictures, taken with flash, had strange "blobs" in them ...