More family hospitality

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- FOOD: Home made casserole and chocolate muffins - more tasty family cooking. Chicken, brie and cranberry pizza. My first (and only) try of Vegemite.

- AREA: Stunning Tongariro National park in the snow. Long drive to Wellington. Big night out. Kaitoke Regional Park where some of Lord of the Rings was filmed. Ferry to the South Island

- PEOPLE: My third cousin twice removed (or something like that) Aunty Sheila who made us feel VERY welcome.

- WEATHER: Snow falling on the magnificent mountain range. Oh, and more rain of course.


Tue 9th Aug: Cor blimey guv - WHAT a view to wake up to - snow topped mountains looming over us - 3 of them, all volcanoes: Mount Tongariro, Mount Ruapehu (this baby still erupts and is due for another) and Mount Ngauruhoc.
Such a shame that time limitations plus the fact it's winter and therefore very snowy, dangerous conditions meant we couldn't do the Tongariro Crossing trek - supposedly one of the best 1 day walks in NZ.
Instead we made do with driving to the ski resort and viewing the mountains closer - WOW, and it even snowed for us. Bit strange going to the loo and seeing signs up for what to do if the volcano erupts though!

The rest of the day was spent on a LONG drive to Wellington where we were treated at another family member's house. My Nana's second cousin or some such relation but I remember her lots from my youth and she made us feel so very welcome.
Even though we only had time to pop in for an hour or so, she'd made us a delicious casserole which we ate sat up at the table (it's been a while since such sophistication) and then we scoffed her home made choc muffins.
It's a very nice house and it was good to see her and would've been so nice to spend more time there. But... a night out in Wellington was desired so we splashed out on a hostel room for once and drunk wine while getting ready to go out to see the what the capital's night life has to offer....


Wed 10th: When we eventually roused ourselves after recovering from what the capital's night life had to offer we drove to Kaitoke Regional Park which is about the only site where some of Lord of the Rings was filmed that is FREE - the rest seem to charge about half of what it cost to make the films! We were the only people there and took in it's glory - such a perfect location.
Our ferry across to the South Island wasn't until 3am so we ate in the pub (chicken, brie and cranberry pizza - lots of it over here so had to be tried) and then saw 'The Island' in the cinema... nice to see a film in English at the flicks.

We managed to sleep for a few hours in the ferry port's car park and then took our duvets onto the ferry where we slept more after a breakfast of Vegemite (urrghh - it's just not the same as Marmite) on toast.

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