Tongariro National Park

Hey everyone,

  

 This Saturday we went out to Tongariro National Park. We couldn't have asked for a better day, it was so clear, we could see every mountain perfectly. There are three mountains in Tongariro National Park: Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. 

This is Mt. Ruapehu on the drive up. It has two ski fields on it- Whakapapa and Turoa. It last erupted in 2007. 

This is Mt. Ngauruhoe (pronounced nare-uh-hoe-ee) and it was Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. 

It is my favourite of the three, this picture doesn't do it justice! The last time it erupted was in 1977.

This is Mt. Tongariro. It's actually made up of 12 cones and technically Ngauruhoe is one of Tongariro's cones, not it's own mountain. It last erupted in August of this year, and spewed ash all over the place, closing highways and what have you. You can't really see from my crap picture but it puffs constantly and you can really smell the sulphur even from where this picture was taken. 

The first thing we did on Saturday was take a 2 hr hike on the Taranaki Falls Loop.  This was a great hike, there was a little bit of everything.  

         

There was bush with flowing streams..

Flat sections that gave us great views of the mountains. That's Ngauruhoe on the right and Tongariro on the left. And Jared, of course. 

And waterfalls! This is Taranaki Falls. 

When we were done that hike we decided to drive up State Hwy 47 and see what we could see. We stopped and checked out an ancient Maori dwelling and got some pictures of Tongariro from across the lake. Then we stopped in at Tokaanu thermal pools. This was very cool, there is so much geothermal activity around this place! 

One of the hot pools at Tokaanu. Too hot for me to put my fingers in!

After that we drove via Turangi back to Taumaranui. Lots of great views along the way. This one is about 5 minutes down the road from where we are staying. 

We are staying in Owhango while we work here, that is A, B is where we did the hike, C is where the thermal pools were, and D is where we are working. More on that in the next blog or two.

Until next time!