New Zealand, Part 6: Volcano Road Trip

We headed from a lake volcano, to one that looked a little more familiar. Mount Tongariro, in fact, looked very familiar. I took this photo, at sunset:

Just kidding.

I did take this picture though:

 We left pretty blue water, for scrub and volcanic rocks in only a two hour drive. The mountain is not too big, but it towers over the area.

This was the only part of the trip where I felt like I might be in some sort of US National Park, I half expected Smokey the bear to pop out. Although, I 've never seen a "volcanic activity meter" before.

This sign may have scared me a bit. I like that game where you jump from the couch to the coffee table, trying not to touch the lava...but I don't actually want to dodge lava or flying ash. Think I'm being dramatic? It erupted, about one year before we were there (see it here). Maybe that's when they installed the sign.

We found this waterfall on the way to the base of the mountain. I'm not sure why no one told Frodo and Sam that there was a natural spring 1K to the left.

  What a drama queen --->

As we started climbing the volcano, the scenery changed quite a bit. The hike was difficult, but it offered so many opportunities for jokes, such as "when are the eagles going to come," that we had a great time. We hiked about 8 miles, but on the next New Zealand trip, we'll hike all the way across the mountain.

 They also filmed Merry and Pippin's kidnapping scenes (and piggy back running) scenes here. Can't you just imagine a pack of orcs running through?

On our way back to the car, loved the whole hike and scenery. 

I had to include this self-timer fail. Doesn't Michael look nice? He's mumbling, "you're not going to make it."

We left the mountain for, what we thought was going to be, a short drive to the southern coast along the Forgotten World Highway. Unfortunately, we based our timing on google maps, which calculates destination time on the speed limit. It was absolutely beautiful, and had a 100 Km speed limit. I was averaging...30, sometimes 35 kilometers an hour. It was a truly beautiful part of New Zealand though. Once we left the volcanic area, we were passing through grassy hills, that reminded me of St. Patrick's Day hats. They were very steep and rose up in narrow triangles. I've never seen hills with elevation changes like that--especially not hills covered in grass.

You may see part of the road below. 100 km? Crazy kiwis.

We stopped along the drive at the only little business we saw (outside of sheep farms). This was my favorite pit stop on our trip. Scratch that--it was my favorite of any trip I've ever been on. Welcome to Lauren's Lavender Farm.

 

There were apiaries just out of frame. The shop boasts lavender honey, since the bees pollinate the lavender plants.We had some. Mmmm. Just a little chuck of honeycomb.

 See the leprechaun hats in the background?

We bought quite a few little presents at the gift store. What a beautiful place. You should go. 

 This is Smoky. She spends most of the day hunting bees and wooing tourists. We were wooed.

We drove the rest of the day, arriving at Mount Taranaki at sunset. The mountain floats on the clouds like this almost every night (so said our waitress in town). We'll hike that one some day too.

From Tongariro to Taranaki. 

We ended up spending the night in Stratford, which was straight-up crazy. There was a Shakespearean theme to the architecture, which managed to be so far from charming that we sped out of town the next morning.