Kiwi travels by Lemmo

We've had a busy week these past 7 days.  After driving through the Marlborough Sounds on Queen Charlotte Road (treated to some perfect weather and superb views), we hopped onto a ferry and got to continue our journey through the Sounds over to the North Island and Wellington.  We spent 4 days in the capital, relaxing, visiting the local area, enjoying the nightlife and restaurants and doing some shopping.  This is the first city we've been to in NZ that actually feels like a reasonably big town.  However, it's still small enough to walk around and is definitely not over-crowded like UK cities.  Apart from the gale force winds that seem to come and go every other hour, we left Wellington having really enjoyed ourselves.

Next stop was Wanganui - 2 hours up the coast at the mouth of the Whanganui river.  Our travels took us here to jet boat up the river to somewhere known as 'The Bridge to Nowhere'.  It literally is just that - a bridge, located in the middle of lush, native forest, in the middle of nowhere.  No roads to be seen.  Very weird, but lots of history and, again, fantastic weather (fingers crossed we've seen the back of the early Spring rainfall) and beautiful surrounds.  Our driver pulled off a couple of the obligatory - and great fun - 360 degree spins in the jet boat on the way home.  We jumped in the car - wet, but grinning manically - to continue our journey to the Tongariro National Park.

The Tongariro National Park is in the centre of the North Island and contains 3 huge and very active volcanoes (so active in fact that the biggest of the three erupted a few weeks ago).  We were again treated to a clear, sunny day when we set off on the famous Tongariro-Crossing 1 day walk - the best in NZ, and certainly the best we've ever done.  The walk was quite challenging, with steep rocky climbs and snowy mountain traverses (we reached nearly 1900m at the height of the walk), and the experience was unforgettable.  We saw Mt Egmont/Taranaki far to the East and Lake Taupo to the North.  We walked through two volcanic craters and circumvented a handful more.  Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom from LOTR) smoked ominously as we skirted its edge.  Gale force winds nearly blew us into the giant Red Crater (the winds at the tops of the mountains were pretty fierce at times).  The Emerald Lakes were an extreme turquoise, coloured by the high concentration of minerals.  The views were outstanding.

Next stop - Lake Taupo and Rotorua for some more water-borne and geothermal activities... (plus maybe jumping out of a plane).

Tom and Elle x