Tongariaro National Park

Monday morning as we drove toward the Tongariro National Park several cars were pulled over to the side of the road and everyone was taking pictures of the mountain.  So of course we stopped and clicked a few too.  This is an active volcano.  You can see the steam coming out of the mountain.

We drove a bit further and saw this -  if you've seen any Peter Jackson movies, it looked pretty familiar. 

Mt. Ngauruhoe

A little later we saw this mountain which is part of Whakapapa Village where they have a ski lift.  You ski on a "live" volcano.

Mt. Ruapehu

Tongariro National Park is where you find Mt. Ngauruhoe, Mt. Ruapehu and Mt. Tongariro.  These are active volcanoes.  If you look at the pictures you might recognize Mt. Ngauruhoe as Mt. Doom from the movie "Lord of the Rings".  Much of the countryside was used in filming the movies and as we tramped about we could understand why this area was perfect for some of the movie scenes.

One day we went on a 6 kilometers tramp (trek) to Taranaki Falls.  It was well worth the hike as the falls were magnificent.

This was the half way mark

The sights and sounds of Taranaki Falls

Ski Lift at Whakapapa Village

Ski Rental House

On another day we went to a Thermal Hot Springs.  There are several in the area.  We also checked out the drop off and pickup point for a 19.5 kilometer hike called Tongariro Alpine Crossing.  Gary would like to do this hike, but he is going to have to find a different hiking partner as this one it is out of Susan's league.

Here are some other things we saw in this central part of New Zealand's North Island.  Both of these "pieces of art" are made out of what appears to be drift wood.  We thought our grandsons would love the Kiwi and T-Rex.

We decided to drive back to Auckland on Wednesday so we could be home for Christmas.  Since we did not have the Internet where we were staying, we knew that we would not be able to talk to our family unless we went back home for Christmas.  But we had a wonderful time.  The office building basically closes down for the holidays, so that was not much work for to do there.

"For the beauty of the earth, For the beauty of the skies, For the Love which from our birth over and around us lies."  For the Beauty of the Earth;  Text - Folliott S. Pierpoint, Music-  Conrad Kocher