Tongariro National Park

The Stray bus drivers like their early starts, it was a 7.30am departure from Lake Taupo to get to the national park. I hadn't even had my morning cuppa.

The Tongariro National Park is famous for being the setting of Mordor in the Lord of the Rings films. The park is home to 3 dormant volcanos, the most prominent being Mt Doom (real name Rapahau) which is the most volcano looking volcano we've ever seen, and we've now seen quite a few.

We were given the choice of doing the Tongariro crossing, which is a 17km walk across challenging terrain, taking 6-8hrs to complete or doing a couple of shorter walks around the park. Which one do you think we opted for..........

Thats right the shorter walk. We did the 2hr walk to Taranaki Falls. It was quite steep in places but we completed it in 1hr 50mins with a ribena and biscuit stop and stops for photos. The falls were spectacular and very cold. The water was crystal clear. We rewarded ourselves with a lemonade lolly at the finish line.

We stayed in the national park for the night in a really lovely lodge which had an outdoor spa. As we got into the spa we found the temperature had been set to a boiling 41 degrees, after turning it down a few degrees, it was a lovely way to relieve our aching muscles. All we needed to make it any better was a beer!