Blogs from Tongariro National Park, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 28

English An early (to be on holidays) waking up (6.50), due to the long walk that awaits me and also due to the fact that after the hike I have to drive to Wellington (5 hours...), is the beginning of a special day. The walk start from a place from which you can see all the mountains that is just there waiting for you to hike.... The landscape is really desertic like with just small plants (the dark colour of the lava causes additional heating of the soil that usual plants don't rellay enjoy!). After 1 hour walking on nice FLAT path, there is a steep climb up to the South Crater, which looks really like a lunar landscape once you are there! The walk continues heading up to the Red crater, a Vulcano still ... read more

The two hobbits had a rather fruitless attempt on reaching Mount Doom this time. Sauron sent all the bad weather he could provoke, the clouds, the rain, and the wind had us turn back at the famous Tongariro Crossing. We felt a little bit 'doomed' and we were happy to get back to dry area afterwards...... read more

Tredje gangen gillt. (Om ni kommer ihag har vi forsokt att ga den har vandringen tva ganger tidigare.) Pa alla hjartans dag tar vi en snortidig buss (fran Taupo) upp till den lilla bergsbyn Whakapapa, som eg bara bestar av ett enda stort hotell, och borjar ga "Tongariro Northern Circuit". Detta ar ocksa en sk Great Walk och i denna ingar "Tongariro Crossing" som ar en mycket popular dagsvandring over ett omrade med vulkanisk aktivitet. Vi gar vandringen baklanges, eftersom vaderleksprognosen ser bast ut at det hallet, med tanke pa utsikter. Uppe i nationalparken vandrar vi nastan hela tiden ovanfor tradgransen och vi har torrt och vackert vader och fantastiska vyer redan forsta dagen. Vi campar och forsoker folja de nagot bangstyriga reglerna avseende detta. Minst 500 m fran stigen och utan sikte. Inte helt latt ... read more

I left Wellington via the train at 7:30 a.m. in early January. It is a twelve hour ride all the way to Auckland, with a 45 minute stop halfway along in the National Park. The staff from the Wellington train hop off, and switch to the southbound train which meets us at the halfway stop, and we get the staff from the other train. The Overlander web page has a bit more info and a link to another gallery of pictures as well. I was fortunate to have an interesting seat mate on the train, and we chatted along the route. While I had been careful to pack a novel to read to while away the hours, I got barely a chapter read, because if I wasn't engaged in conversation with Chris, I was glued to ... read more

first of all check the GALLERY section for some wicked badass pictures from our adventures these past couple days. you might have to click on the SLIDESHOW button on the top right side of the nov 25th gallery entry. enjoy ill start from Matamata a bit and give a brief synopsis. From hobbiton we were off to Rotorua. This is basically a tourist paradise. We werent your average tourists though. We didnt have the money to go on the crazy jet boating or the thermal spas. Which by the way smells like ass. Its always nice to walk down the street and and get the smell of rotton eggs. We only stayed the night and were off to Taupo. Its a really nice city and we did spend two nights here. We usually spend more than ... read more