Zorbing, Mordor and a lot of sulphur in the air

We are now Zorbonauts

Sulphur lakes in Rotorua!

Tongariro National Park, aka Mordor!

We continued our journey South as we left Auckland, through a couple of national parks. On this trip Nic and I have gradually forced ourselves to learn to like walking, not just walking 5 minutes to the shops, oh no, like, hiking hard core, needing to take water supplies. Well, we like to take it easy and so when venturing into the Coromandel Peninsula we decided to take the 50 minute walk to the waterfalls. These waterfalls appeared more and more illusive as 2 hours down the track we were still lost, heading up some seriously steep cliffs and growing more and more annoyed. We bumped into some fellow 'trampers' (the technical term for those in the know) who showed us where we were on their secret squirell walking map. Ie we were miles from where we thought. We headed in the 'right' direction and then found that the track followed the route of this stream, and crossed the water about 20 times. It had rained the night before and so navigating a dry route across the river via a few rocks was getting tough. It was about the time we reached the 19th crossing that I really lost it. Having so carefully made the crossing before I was keen to keep dry, but the river had other plans. One slip in the wrong direction and you guessed it, I fell in. Nic laughed for a while until the 20th nightmare and she also met with her watery mishap. So we trudged back, wading through water to the van. In case you were wondering, trainers and jeans become very heavy when they are wet.

Back on dry land we made the trip to Rotorua, which is a really interesting place, not only because as soon as you arrive you can smell rotten eggs. That's right, this place is teaming with volcanic activity, and even in the centre of town they have bubbling mud pools and steam rising from the ground as a result of the hot volcanic rocks not far beneath the surface, and as a bonus, it kicks up quite a sulphury smell! Rotorua is proud to boast that it is the birthplace of a 'phenonmenon' called Zorbing. Imagine yourself as a giant hamster, in a ball, and then imagine that ball is being pushed from the top of a steep hill. Oh and add some water inside so the hamster sloshes about a bit. Now replace hamster, with yourself, and you have Zorbing! Nic and I got in our togs and made the ascent to the top of the hill, and we were officially now 'Zorbonauts'. Individually we got in our watery ball and were pushed and shoved around down a zig zag course until we made it to the bottom, where as drowned rats we had our photos taken, and then exiting the Zorb meant pretty much falling out the bottom of it with a flood of water resembling something, not unlike, a rebirth. Beautiful.

We then moved on to a place called Taupo, which has a huge lake, formed from a volcanic crater, and is overshadowed by none other than Mt Ruapehu, aka Mordor from Lord of the Rings! It is an absolutely beautiful place and is perfect with the snowed capped mountains. We stayed in the town for a while and investigated more steaming mud pool and craters, and then made the trip to Tongariro national park, home to Mts Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro, of LOTR fame! In our haste to do a walk (ok exaggerating slightly now) we drove straight to the top of the snowy mountains (which are also still in ski season) and tried to do a walk. It wasn't long before it started snowing on us however and believe it or not, our 10 ton van could not withstand the terrain. We were pretty close to becoming a casualty of Mordor so we decided to head back, but it was an awesome day!