Tongariro national park is famous for its volcanoes and thermal areas.

There are thee main volcanoes in the park : mount Ngauruhoe ( Mount Doom in the lord of the Rings), mt Ruapehu and mount Tongariro. Mt Ngauruhoe is the most eye-catching one as it had a “standard” conical look.

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Apart from hiking there is not much to do in the park, so guess what, we hiked. We started with a small hike 30 mins to a waterfall and on the same day did another 40 mins ridge walk. That gave us a first view of the typical vulcano mt doom.
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Tanne and Inse did very well on those so the next day we could do a 2hrs walk to Taraniki waterfalls. Amazingly Inse did complete nearly the whole walk. Not bad for a three year old.
As a reward we treated ourselves with chairlift to the highest restaurant in Nz. At 2020m we enjoyed the sun on the panoramic terras, what a view !
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The real maincourse in Tongariro is the world famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a 8hrs, 20km hike in beween the volcanoes, a trophee Steven could not resist. So next morning he took an early start and at 7am he started his walk. Hoping to be back at 2pm so we had enough time to hit the road. You can read the outcome of that Crossing in a separate post. But at 12 he was back at the campground after a 4hr 30mins hike…
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We hit the road with a long stretch to wellington in front of us. There a no real highlights in beween, so drive, drive, drive. But we ended with a free overnight with the camper right on the beach, perfect!
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The Wellington day was one of those day to forget… In short : no parking in the city for our camper, no campground , so no visit.
20min drive to a extremely expensive campground…

The Ferry Crossing itself was something we looked forward to, not only because it did bring us to the scenic south island, but also because the last hour go through the amazing Marlborough Sounds, some kind of fjord. That alone makes it worthwhile…
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Categorieën: New Zealand

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