The Pillars Taupo

... 12km walk to Huka Falls when i arrived (ithought it was only 20 minutes away!). Arranged to go the Tongariro Alpine crossing the next morning (regarded as one of the best one day walks in the world) so early to bed as i had to be up at 5.30am - the walk takes about 8 hours. Really looking forward to it, despite the gruelling nature.<br><br>

... overwhelming and I am pretty sure it was the site of the picture on our lonely planet travel guide. Three large active volcano&#8217;s capped with snow towered above otherwise barren landscape. I had to say it sooner or later, but yes, "I felt like I was in the backdrop of Lord of the Rings" it was a nice hike to Tanaka falls and highlighted another great day in NZ. Ok, so I just found out it is the backdrop to Lord of the Rings, we were hiking on the edge of Morador and Mount Doom.

Today we went to River Valley. On the way there we stopped off at Taranaki Falls, where Lord of the Rings the two towers was shot (the scene with Gollum catching the fish). The river was really beautiful and calm. The falls were very impressive and fascinating to look at. After having some cheesy photos and gazing in awe once more we trekked back on to the Kiwi bus. We then made a couple of stops on ...

... i don't get to try again at killing myself - well not until the morning anyways. We're rescheduled for 8 in the morning when the sky diving conditions are due to be better - hopefully - it'll work out. Sadly - the weather tomorrow will not be good enough to tackle the one day 18km trek over the Tongariro Alpine Crossing - one of the world's finest one day treks - so I'll definitely need to get back here before leaving ...

... certainly will drop from the sky before I head back to Sg. We continue down south as we enter the town of Turangi, for those who love fishing, this is the place you might want to be in "Trout fishing capital of the world". Having to say that I still find it a really small town. We pressed on south until we reach Whakapapa village, a starting point for some of the great walk in the region. We went into the DOC ...

... have a colony by Dunedin, but we never wanted to pay the $30 or something to see them, so it was great to see some for free! They were really big. Wellington was a nice city to explore for a few days. It has been compared to Melbourne in Australia because they're both supposedly the culture and art centers of their respective countries. But after being to Melbourne, I'm not sure I'd agree. Then again, I couldn't afford to go to theatres and concerts ...

... so that helped. on the third day we were shuttled out to the park as john already described; i would do the day hike and john would continue on and finish the circuit. our laid-back bus driver explained he would be waiting on the other side at four p.m. to pick up the day hikers -- in "plenty of time" for us to have a leisurely time. well, after we battled to the top of the pass and scarfed down our lunch i realized i was going to be cutting it close. so i basically ...

... was caused by erosion many years ago (the erosion caused all of the "soft rock" to wear away and eventually cave in leaving the current phenomenon). At the bottom of the crevice is a 12 foot waterfall but with all of the water going over the falls, it turns into a 25 foot waterfall and at several times throughout the year the water is decreased to 15% (when they are making power upstream) and kayakers are allowed over the falls ...

... scared lol) and went to the irish bar for some shepherds pie! We booked to go to Hell's gate, which is a geological walk that takes you through different areas of volcanic activity, we saw the largest thermal waterfall in the southern hemisphere (the biggest is in iceland!), a volcano made from mud, lots of sulpher pools, and 5 or 6 times i actually had to breathe through my mouth to try not to gag and throw up! lol but all very interesting! We then got a ...

... stinking pits of the stuff I'm not totally surprised!!! There are some other really famous geothermal anomolies here too like the Champagne Pool, which looks nothing like Champagne but does bubble and pop and fizz which is cool, and there is loads of other cool stuff too. After we left Wai-O-Tapu the driver did try to get us all on these high ropes things - but as no one wanted to do it we just left and headed to our next stop - the Huka ...