Tongariro Crossing

[NOTE: I wrote this post in October 2009 – I realized I had never finished writing my posts about New Zealand, which is a crime because the Tongariro Crossing was one of the most exhilirating experiences of my life. I think I was trying to think of enough eloquent things to say about it, but…

Tongariro Summit

Just had to post one photo from today, even though I'm not nearly caught up yet on my other posts…   Tongariro Summit This was an hour-and-a-half side trip off of the 19k Tongariro Crossing that we did today. Alex, meanwhile, was scaling Mt Doom behind me there. More awesome pics to follow later, it was…

Planning for tomorrow

When I first was researching where to go in New Zealand, I chose the southern end of Lake Taupo for its proximity to national parks that sounded like they had good hikes through terrain we don't have at home (volcanoes and such). I also had seen from Omori LakeHouse's website that they were near the…

Omori Lakehouse

View from Omori Lakehouse This was the view of Lake Taupo that greeted us when we got out of our car at the Omori Lakehouse B&B. We just kind of said, Wow, and thought we would probably be able to handle this…! We put our things in our rooms (Al and I had one room,…

Road to Lake Taupo

After our invigorating waterfall hike, we headed south on Route 27, then Rt 1, then 32, toward the final destination of our trip, Lake Taupo. When I researched for our trip, I thought this area looked like it had lots of opportunities for tramping in the types of landscapes we'd never been in before. Several…

Wairere Falls

Okauia escarpment Wednesday morning after our big country breakfast, we drove the few km from the cottage to the Wairere Falls track (the waterfall we could see from our window). The weather was absolutely gorgeous, already t-shirt temperatures by 9:00. When I had first researched this area online, I’d been struck by the unusual topography…

Wairere Falls Farm Cottage

Our lodgings in the Matamata area Tuesday night were a "farmstay" near Wairere Falls. Of all the places I had found online for our trip, I was the most unsure about this one, based on its little webpage and its price ($80 NZ + $20 for 1 extra person, so that was only about $55…

Redoubtable repast

Our Hobbiton tour bus took us back to Matamata just in time for an early dinner, so we walked across the street to the Redoubt Bar & Eatery, which had been recommended to us by the friendly woman at the information center. (I don't think we met a single person in NZ who was not…