Tongariro National Park

Our late night and night out the previous day caused Jen and I to have a well deserved sleep as we were knackered. We opened the windows and boot, had breakfast in bed and Adam was nice enough to make us tea in bed. It was a gorgeous day and we drove five minutes to Whakapapa Village where we set off on a walk to Taranaki Falls where there was a massive waterfall. We climbed to the top and peered over. The loop walk was a couple of hours and was really nice walking through the trees. I walked ahead with Mike and had a good old chat with him. The others probably had Adam slowing them down in his standard footwear attire- flip flops!

We made a BBQ together on arrival back at the same campsite. We tucked the two campervans together and made a nice little cooking area under the boots of both cars, using all the hobs. We then got ourselves tucked up into the boys' van to watch Catch Me If You Can. However, I think it was running low on power and so the tv decided not to work today. Instead, a few games of 'would you rather?' were played and a few jokes circulated. It took a while for Jens to fall asleep. She kept bursting out giggling remembering the funny moments of the evening, but finally drifted off!

Falling asleep late probably wasn't the best idea. We woke up at 6.30am to get to Howard's Lodge in the National Park Village. We took a shuttle bus from there with a group of people to the beginning of the Alpine Crossing. The hike is between two of the three volcanoes in the park and lasts about 8hrs, depending on how fast you walk! We'd picked a really really hot day. The factor 50 sun cream came out early, even after setting off at 8.45am and we were reapplying like mad throughout the day. The terrain was so rocky and there was no cover at all from the sun. There was a bit of snow in some parts and it was quite refreshing grabbing some and cooling off! The way up in parts was really steep but we all managed and get to the top. The views were amazing and we saw loads of small crater hot pools with steam coming up from them. We had lunch at the top and I showed my bum to the world behind the only vaguely large rock for a quick wee! Adam whacked out his flip flops for the lunch break- there's always one! He was the only one who managed to complete the walk in trainers.

We continued on and although our water was running out in the heat, we still powered on. We stopped at one place where the sign clearly read 'not drinking water'. The water was rain water and quite cloudy with bits in it. While the rest of us used our purification tablets, Adam and Mike seemed a bit to manly for that and drank it there and then. After a warning from a woman about there being parasites in the water, we were quite prepared for both of the boys to get ill!

I think by the afternoon we were all just ready for it to end and we had been walking for 6 hours by then. We walked through greener areas for the last hour and a half and finally arrived at 4.15pm, 7.5hrs later. We were all absolutely exhausted, we were pretty quiet on the return shuttle back to Howard's Lodge. Unfortunately, the accommodation we wanted to stay at was closed for the night, so we had to rethink and went to a holiday park about 20 minutes away on the way back to Turangi. Having a shower was so so good! We cooked a quick meal and ate and fell asleep.