Goodbye Wellington

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Mike very kindly dropped me at the bus station, and I was on the bus zooming out of Wellington at 9am. We had a few stops at little towns along the way – nothing to note apart from incredibly quiet and small – nothing to them! The lunch stop was a little bigger, but again, eerily quiet, and the only shops included every type of fast food place (MacDonald’s, KFC, Subway, Burger King), lots of second hand furniture/antique style shops…but not high end antiques, and cafes selling Fish and Chips.

At Turangi I changed bus with most other people, on to a shuttle to the National Park Village, where we arrived at 4pm, in torrential rain.

I have had my heart set on doing a walk known as the Northern Circuit, here in the Tongariro National Park, a 3-4 day hike. However due to the appalling weather, the only half decent day in a week being tomorrow, I have had to settle for doing the Tongariro Crossing – the one day walk.

A guy that works in the reception gives everyone interested a brief chat about it at 6pm. I am quite disappointed I can’t do the full circuit, but hey, hopefully the weather is a bit better tomorrow, enough for the shuttle to run to take us to the start, and to do the day hike.

The village is absolutely tiny here and eerily quiet. With limited supplies in my food bag, I venture out in the horrible weather, visiting to the only place selling groceries….the small supermarket in the petrol station. Luckily I bought some quinoa in the town we stopped in at lunch, some just pick up a large bag of carrots, broccoli, tuna and muesli.

Nice quiet evening chatting to people in the hostel, including people who are doing the walk tomorrow.

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