Waterfall No 12394

I hopped on a very different kind of Stray bus to get to the Tongariro Crossing (a very beautiful 19km walk up and across Mount Doom.) The group was pretty big with so many mixed nationalities, and everyone got along so well, it resulted in a couple of interesting evenings.





The drive to 'Blue Duck Station', our next hostel, was amazing: there's an active volcano smoking away right on the horizon.














Blue Duck Station is about as far inland as you can get. Tucked between the mountains and a river, you can do kayaking, hunting, horse trekking and other activities.

I went for a nice one-hour walk to the nearby falls with a few others. Despite the humidity and heat of the afternoon, it began to rain, but the dripping leaves and rocks made the waterfall even more beautiful.

And of course, one has to go to the bottom and the top of any sort of falls here.

I even made some friends on the way back. They kept running away and then stopping and waiting for me at the next corner...

They weren't very talkative though.

As the day of the Crossing approached. heavy fog and monsoon-like rains hit the Station and the hike was, surprisingly, cancelled. (And I mean that, they rarely cancel an activity this popular.)

So instead we stayed in this alpine lodge, soaked in the hot tub and did the typical New Zealand pasttime activity: visiting yet another waterfall.

The first was Gollum's Pool.

The second was Taranaki Falls, which required a two hour walk through the volcanic tundra.

All in all, a fun and hike-heavy couple of days.

And then a five hour drive away from the WiFi-less lands into...

Wellington!

More to come... :)