The North Island

As we felt like we'd seen pretty much all there was to see, we headed on our way North to Lake Taupo & stopped mid way at Tongariro ready for a big walk! We got to our campsite quite late & it was very cold & blustery…..thankfully we had a sheltered area to cook under & we got chatting to 2 other couples who were planning their walk the next day too. Little did we know that this walk required 2 cars, 1 to get to the start at Tongariro crossing & 1 at the finish point which we hadn't researched & knew nothing about. Thankfully these guys were kind enough to suggest we pool all of our cars together so we could all do the walk.

Wed 25th
We got up early at 6.30am, had a big breakfast made our buttes for the day & headed on to our 7hr walk for the day! This was the legendary 'Mount Doom', and Jonathan being a bit of a Lord of the Rings fan meant we had a bit of commentary on the way there ;-)
It was a pretty tough walk in places, parts being quite a steep climb but the views are stunning & for me the highlight was the turquoise pools on the way down. To say we were knackered afterwards was an understatement…….we'd been lucky with good weather so we headed off to a campsite with showers :-)

Over the next few days travelling north we went to Lake Taupo and visited Huka Falls, which are the faster flowing falls - so fast they can fill something like 9 olympic sizes swimming pools in just 6 seconds. And closely to here is the 'Craters of the Moon' attraction, which as the name suggest is a huge area thats full of bubbling mud pools & steam arising from the ground due to the volcano activity in the area.

Sat 28th
After stopping off via Rotorua, we drove up to Coromandel and visited to Sting Ray beach & Catherdral cove. These were both beautiful beaches, very secluded and paradise like and it was fab to have a chill out amongst gorgeous scenery. Then we went to the infamous 'Hot Beach' which was a bit overrated really…….as expected it was very busy as the crowds basically come here with their spades and dig themselves a deep hole in the the beach, where eventually red hot water comes through. It is pretty cool I guess as you're standing next to the cold Pacific sea yet you're standing in a pool of red hot water that's being heated by the thermal volcano activity. We actually cheated a bit & sneaked into somebody elses hot pool & dipped our toes in. We got the same effect without the hard work! !
That evening we stayed at Kanawera valley park & met a very large, wild but friendly, NZ family who were intent on getting wasted & have fun that night. And they did!

The next day we left coromandel early as weather wasn't great & headed towards Auckland. We stopped at great free big campsite that had a bit of a mini farm , and there wasn't really much in the way of sights or things to see or do so we decided as this was nearly the end of our trip together we'd have a party night. So we drank beer. cider & wine & stumbled into bed!

Mon 30th
The boys woke with a massive hangover! Using this as a perfect excuse we headed to a luxury campsite and then drove nto Auckland. It was their holiday weekend & there was a big boat & food festival going on at the marina so we had a good wander around.

So this was our last night in NZ.
It had been an amazing few weeks, to be honest I can't believe I survived camping for so long! But we had such great fun, a real adventure and we loved it so much it's definitely a country we'd love to visit again as 3 weeks is just not long enough.

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on January 24, 2012 from Wellington, New Zealand
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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