Wellington and The Tongariro Crossing

We spent a few relaxing days in the lovely not windy city of Wellington. It was nice to stop cycling for a few days, to sleep in a proper bed, to see some friends, go out for a drink or two and to be able to go to the cinema (not that we did but the possibility was there). If Tim and Anna had a TV we would have probably spent all day watching daytime telly. Luckily they did not so we were free to spend our days in front of the computer surfing the internet and having long breakfasts and lunches.

It was hard to get dragged away from big city life but we were driven up to the volcanic plateau on Saturday after a morning of deluxe milkshake drinking and driving around sunny Wellington.
We had an early night on Saturday after arriving in Raitihi and set off before daylight the next morning to walk the Tongariro Crossing.

The weather was perfect and everyone kept saying how lucky we were. We began to worry that it was going to start raining any minute. Luckily it it did not and the weather stayed beautiful all day, which helped make it a perfect day. We spent a long time at the top of the crossing experimenting with the lesser force of gravity you get at high altitude. What fun it was. We were surrounded by smoking volcanoes (Mt Doom), walked through craters, and floated on top of the world (not quite the top). In order to blend in and not embarrass our friends we went with the locally popular leggings & shorts combination look. In the evening we celebrated with a roast and red wine before being dropped off at the start of the '42 Traverse' Mountain Bike Track the next morning.

Wellington milkshakes

Large carrot outside a town with nothing better going for it than a large carrot

Volcano

Mountain Elves

Clowns beneath volcano (Mt Ngauruhoe)

another volcano (the same one)



climbing out of crater

landing

jumping

floating

cool

getting the hang of flying

steaming mountaintop

The Emerald Lakes