Chateau Tongariro

Our accommodation tonight was in Whakapapa Village, unfortunately not the main Chateau hotel in this picture, but the cheaper motel units behind. Ruapehu volcano is in the background.





This is the view back down the valley from the motel room - a non cloud moment, of which there weren't many today!






After dinner at the hotel bar we were fortunate to see Ruapehu as the cloud had cleared, the first time we had seen the top of the mountain since we arrived.

Taupo

On route to our next destination we stopped off in Taupo to see the Huka Falls - the sun shining on the water made it a wonderful blue colour.





From here we headed to the Aratiatia Dam, the gates to which open three times a day to fill the valley for generation of electricity. This is the view down the valley before the gates opened.




At 10am the gates opened after loud warning sirens, with 90,000 litres of water passing through the gates every second.






The gates stay open for half an hour at a time by which time the valley is full and the rapids generated. This is a view back down the valley now full of water.





We then walked down stream to the view point to see back up to the dam gates.

Redwoods Forest, Rotorua

The weather was a bit changeable today so didn't venture too far afield. Instead we headed to the Redwoods Forest just outside Rotorua for a walk. The forest is full of Californian Redwood trees that seem to go up forever!





Some of the trees are immense, and even the thinner trunked trees are still incredibly straight. Here Royston and I are getting at one with nature and hugging trees...








Some areas of the forest also have native NZ plants including the ever present ferns.

Te Puia - Maori Show

After we had wandered around the thermal area, we headed to the marae to watch the Maori show, which commenced with the traditional Maori welcome.





We were then invited into the marae to watch a performance of traditional Maori songs and dances.






Including the infamous haka - a bit different to the All Blacks version.

Te Puia - Thermal Area

This afternoon we went to Te Puia on the outskirts of Rotorua to look at the thermal areas and experience a Maori show. We were fortunate to see the Pohutu geyser going off when we got into the park.




The park has lots of areas of bubbling mud, smelly sulphur, silica terraces and of course the geysers for which the park is most famous.

Skyline Gondola, Rotorua

Our next port of call was Rotorua, and as the sun was shining, we headed straight to the Skyline Gondola, a cable car taking us up the hill behind Rotorua.





The view down over the lake and city was spectacular.







There are many crazy activities to do at the top including luging down the hill or a bungy swing. We settled for the gentle cable car option to return back to the bottom.

Waihi Beach & Martha's Mine

Our accommodation was a cabin at the Waihi Beach Top 10 campsite. The highlight of our stay was bouncing on the jumping pillow - we haven't laughed so much in ages. Laughed too much however causing us to fall over many times.




A much more civilised activity - a cold beer enjoyed on our cabin balcony overlooking the campsite and pool area.





The following morning, we stopped off at Martha's Mine to show Charlotte and Dougal the gold mine.






And no we haven't shrunk, the truck really is that big.