Into Middle Earth
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
1
140
349
Trip End
May 14, 2009
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Tongariro National Park,
North Island,
New Zealand
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The hostel in Taupo was pretty good actually. It had a tv room, pool table, cheap bar and free internet.
The bus followed lake Taupo round until we stopped off at a place called Tokaanu. Here you are able to swim in naturally heated spring water pools. There are also a load more natural pools all around, but the water in these is boiling, so no swimming in them ones. The steam is really hot that comes off the thermal pools, so you can't get too close anyway. Yet another amazing piece of nature.
Whilst here we used the geothermal activity to cook some chicken. This is the traditional Maori way of cooking called Hangi. You place the chicken on some sticks that hang across one of these pools, or mud pools, of thermal activity. You then cover the lot with a sheet and the steam then cooks the chicken. It was beautiful to eat and ever so tender. These holes can be used by anyone free of charge and is an amazing way of cooking food naturally.
Next stop was Tongariro Chateau which has great views over the National Park - which is where you can really see why this place was used as Middle Earth. The chateau itself looks quite spooky and is in the middle of nowhere. Probably really creepy at night! Anyway, we moved on and after a quick stop at a small waterfall, we finally arrived at our accommodation for the next three nights. We had already decided that we would go for a double room here as we were stopping for three nights (most people on the bus were only stopping the one). When we got there we were told that if we stop 2 nights, we get the 3rd night free - result! As we were planning to stop 3 nights anyway, this was perfect. It worked out that the double room with ensuite, fridge, kettle, toaster and heater was only about NZ$2 more than a basic dorm bed for the night!!
The lodge itself, called The Park by the way, is really cool. It's a ski lodge really for access to the mountains in the National Park for skiing. Unfortunately the snow is pretty poor as we are coming to the end of the season, so I don't think we will be able to get any skiing in. We will do a couple of walks instead I think. The lodge has a big satellite TV room, a free to use hot tub and big log fires - perfect for the cold nights!! Feels like Christmas here.
Lorna cooked us a lovely chilli tonight then we had some 2 for 1 beers at the bar. Lorna managed to get herself a bit tipsy, but the bar shut at midnight. When it closed, Lorna went with Claire back to the room to crack open the vodka!!
Me & Craig had more important things to attend to. We had got ourselves in front of the big screen, on about 3 bean bags each, and got our beers from the fridge. We were all set for a football fest on the tele. First kick-off was at 12:45am, Middlesborough 0 Chelsea 5. Next kick-off was 3:00am, Arsenal 3 Everton 1. We were struggling by the next game which kicked off at 5:15am. Man Utd v West Brom. Craig fell asleep before kick off and I made it to half time before dropping off. Typically all 4 Man Utd goals came in the 2nd half. I woke up about 7am and trundled back to my room, but I couldn't wake Craig up, so I left him in peace. He was supposed to be getting the bus at 9am but he has decided to take advantage of the free night deal and stay for 3 nights instead - good job really!
I think a lie in will follow. We are also not mentioning yet another Forest defeat! When are they going to sack that idiot Calderwood?!
