Blergh-Carvings-Blergh

Woke up to discover that the snow from the previous night had settled in a nice little icing sugar dusting. Amy had kept her little bit of wood from when we cleared the car in Kaikoura and fortunately the snow hadn't frozen, so it didn't take too long to clear the car.

Ah, the ever-trusty Ead.

Setting off, we finally got a glimpse of Mount Ngauruhoe, otherwise known as Mount Doom. Look.

Impressed. We also got a brief look at Mount Ruapehu and I managed to grab some pics of Mount Tongariro. Woohoo!

And then the sun came out and we got some amazing views of Lake Taupo, which is absolutely massive.

Turns out it was pretty windy and the kayaking trip we'd booked the day before was cancelled. Instead we booked onto a trip on the lovely little boat Ernest Kemp and headed off for a wander to kill some time until then.

Stopped in at the Taupo Museum where it became all the more apparent that Taupo is actually pronounced Toe-paw. Which is odd, but hey. The museum was just big enough to fill the hour we had to spare and had an awesome exhibit of Maori history.

Then we headed for the marina and boarded the boat. Warnings from the skipper regarding the conditions on the lake - basically, it's really rough and his little helper had got seasick on the trip in the morning. Which was worrying.

Setting off, it became apparent just how bad it was. Claire, bless her, got seriously seasick and the skipper sent his helper to leave some "just in case" bags in the cabin. We're talking swells of at least a couple of metres. Amy spent most of the trip grinning manically while I caught myself clinging to the table without realising. Claire just buried her head in her arms so she didn't have to look at anything. My brain went on a mad trip trying to work out why I thought a shallow drafted boat was a bad move in such big waves...


Anyways, we got to the carvings eventually. They're amazing - something like 10m high and carved by a group of local artists in the 70s. Have some pics:

Claire managed to look up just long enough to go "mm, carvings" and then retreated back into her arms. Good job I had strict instructions to take lots of photos.

Heading back towards Taupo wasn't so bad because we were running with the waves. We passed another boat we'd considered going on, a sailing yacht called Barbary. Glad we didn't go with it - looked like they were having an even bumpier trip than us.

Got some awesome views of the Tongariro National Park and its beautiful mountains. The pics aren't so good, but trust me - it was amazing.

After we'd got off the boat and the skipper had checked that Claire was OK (bless him), we headed off up the road to Huka Falls which are apparently the most visited attraction in New Zealand. The place was indeed full of tourists, but the Falls were pretty cool. Behold, stupid photos.

We also got some photos from a lookout at the top of the hill heading out of Taupo.

And then we went to the hostel. Where there was a dog. Called Jess. She was cute.

"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.