"The weather stabbed me in the face"

We had considered driving to see Mount Taranaki today, but it was wet and cloudy when we got out of the hostel so we decided against it. Instead we headed into Wanganui to see about booking a kayaking session for when we got to Taupo.

That done, we headed off for Tongariro National Park.

Also known as Mordor.

It rained. A lot. There were also a lot of sheep and a random dog which wandered across the road. The view along the road was pretty good though.

Having dumped the bags at the hostel we decided to brave the weather and head into the national park itself. I should probably point out at this point that there's a whole bunch of Lord of the Rings filming locations in Tongariro National Park, including Mordor. And Mount Doom. Oh yeah.

So anyway, we parked at Whakapapa village and headed off on a walk to Taranaki Falls. Still raining heavily, so we couldn't see any of the mountains.

Fortunately, the sun came out briefly when we actually reached the Falls and we grabbed some silly photos.

Here is the photo of Amy trying to bite Claire's finger off.

Heading back towards the village, we thought we'd have the muffins we'd brought along with us. And of course moments later it started raining ice. In Amy's words, Mother Nature had acquired a knife. It was painful. Seriously painful. Frozen faces, frozen fingers, frozen legs.

We stumped back to the car, making a brief detour to the visitor centre where me and Claire dripped all over the floor. Nice hot showers waited at the hostel and then we spent the evening avoiding the school group which were the only other people in the hostel. We decided we needed some music so I nipped outside to get the speakers from the car.

I had thought it was raining. It wasn't. It was snowing. Ack.

Tomorrow, to Taupo.