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Published: January 3rd 2007
South of the north island
Following our restful sta with the Fairhursts we head first to Rotorua and then onto Lake Taupo. Rotorua was interesting from a geological point of view but the town itself did not strike a chord with us. A little too commercialised redneckness for our liking and the run-in with the pissed Moari's outside our hostel room at 4 am didn't endear the place much. The natural features were amazing however with boiling mud, coloured lakes and steaming hillsides as far as the eye could see. We spent a few hours soaking up the heat in the Rotorua thermal baths before heading over to Lake Taupo. Here we gorged on farmed prawns, marvelled at the immense power of the Huka falls and took a stroll through the cratered landscape of "craters of the moon" before heading onto Turangi for the night.
The extreme backpackers hostel was 10x better than the one we frequented in Rotorua (Cackus Jack's, says it all really!) and gave us the restful night we needed to attack the Tongariro crossing the next day. Dudded the best one day walk in the world it certainly lived up to its reputation. The weather
Kate and mud
Kate posing in front of the bubbling mud near Rotorua. was fantastic for such a walk and despite kates knee playing up we had a fantastic day. This was followed by a four hour drive to Plimmerton north of Wellington where we stayed in the very comfy Moana lodge hostel, very similar to a british hostel so felt right at home.
From here we were able to visit Wellington (Mark liked, Kate didn't) prior to boarding the ferry to Picton and on to our south island adventure. The trip proved fairly rough but the scenery arriving in the Marlborough sounds more than made up for it and Kate wasn't even seasick, which is more than can be said for the other 70% of the passengers aboard.
with regards to you all, Mark and Kate.
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alice
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meg with no eye lashes
hello travel bugs it looks wonderous as ever, so happy to see another blog. the water in the mountains looks so blue and beautiful, like the colour of the snow flake people. everything is ok here, rather grey i am affraid, very wet and cold, oh how nice it will be for you to return to this, i cant wait to see you though lots of love, alice, rosie, meg and bron x x x x