Taupo to Welly

Our continuing journey down the North island took us along Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand, and to the Tongariro National Trout Centre where Mike drooooooled about the big, fat fish in the river just waiting to be hooked. Then we drove through Tongariro National Park where we had glimpses of Mt Ruapehu (Mordor and Mount Doom for all of you Lord of the Rings fans) and a clear view of Mt Tongariro and its conical sibling Ngauruhoe. When Mike and I were traveling in NZ in 2004, we waited outside the national park for two days, hoping for the weather to clear enough to do the Tongariro Crossing (add a link here) to no avail. So it was lovely to get to see the mountains at least. The crossing, which is a long, one day hike, is still on our list of things to do but not possible this time of year. A few more hours of driving and we arrived in Porirua, a lovely suburb of Wellington, where we met J, C and L who graciously welcomed our loud and chaotic family into their home.

Sunday was spent in Wellington with our hosts, visiting Cuba street and a hip cafe called “Fidel’s”, riding the famous cable car, playing at the park, stalking the tui (add link here) and visiting the Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand. This has to be one of the best museums I have ever visited and it was FREE! We could have easily spent another couple of days there and if we lived in Welly, we would be regulars there. During our time in the museum, “Windy Welly” lived up to its name as a large storm front moved in and brought with it torrential rain and very strong winds which prompted Mr W to look outside and say “car wash!”. The winds howled all night long and we sweated a bit about our impending ferry crossing (they do cancel the ferry on occasion) but drove on to the ferry at about 10am for our trip over to the South Island.