New Zealand ~ North Island

Ferry Crossing from Picton to Wellington and on up to Tongariro National Park.

North Island~
Dec.30th 2009
After the 3 1/2hr. ferry ride we still had around a 4 hour drive up to Tongariro National Park heading up hwy1 North out of Wellington. We fueled up and replenished food stocks for the next 3 days as we knew we’d be out in the boonies again and not sure what would be available. It’s a long drive out of the busy streets of Wellington quite a bit different from where we’ve just been. We head up to Wanganui and then turn inland on hwy 4 towards the Park. You can stay on hwy 1, but we were staying at The Crossings backpacker hostel in Erua which is on the West side of the Park. We see a sign for Erua and then another sign for The Crossings and that’s it. Now 9:30pm, it’s quite dark out with a full cloud cover. We pull into what looks like a bunch of renovated ATCO trailers fixed up and no one at the front desk even though we called to say we’d be arriving later. A few people are there but no innkeeper. After about 10 minutes we see a truck drive up and it’s the owners. We get our rooms, very basic, but clean and crash for the night. Another long travel day of 12 hours. I would not recommend this hostel for families. Expensive, beds not great, and nothing immediate to do without a drive.

Megin, Geoff, and I take a tour of the area and Brendan stays behind to chill out. There are some horses in the yard that we later find out are the owners and just a lot of trees around. We drive up towards the ‘town’ of National Park and find a backpackers hostel and a café down by the train station called The Station Café. I am thrilled to find out they make a tasty Long Black (Americano) and a good latte for Geoff. We then head out towards our first stop, the local ski area called Whakapapa Village nestled up in a lot of the volcanic rock. A very unusual looking place for a ski village I think to myself, but we are on a volcano so the landscape fits. It’s all black and no trees. The sun is out and it’s windy up by the shop and where the chairlift begins. We take a small hike up to a nearby ridge to get a better view and take in Mt. Ngauruhoe 2291m and further beyond Mt. Tongariro 1867m. Mt. Ruapehu 2797m is the mountain that the skiing happens on. The Tongariro Chateau sits alone looking very established and well respected, like a Lake Louise or Banff Springs Hotel. We did not stay here, but it looked very inviting. I noticed there were other options for lodging up in the village that would be nice. Lots of ‘tramping’ trails from here into the Park.

We then took our exploring back to the road and followed hwy 47 around the Park towards Turangi, a small quaint town just at the bottom of Lake Taupo. When we found this town, we realized this would have been a better choice for lodging as there’s more to do and it’s still very close to everything you’d want in the Park. Turangi is one of the hot spots in NZ for outdoor excitement and we found Rafting New Zealand there offering a 4 hour whitewater trip that included jumping off the cliffs next to the Puketarata waterfall. The kids were up for this kind of adventure over hiking for 5 hours in Tongariro. We were lucky to get the last two spots for January 1st 2010 – another surcharge applied for the holiday – but for an adventure sport, whitewater rafting is great value. It seems to cost the least for the amount of time you get to be out. Bungy jumping is 30 seconds or less and costs the same or more, skydiving costs 3x the price and is a little bit longer than a bungy jump, maybe more thrill, but for our family budget, everyone was happy with the whitewater rafting option.

Driving back down the other side of the Park on hwy 1 provided completely different scenery. It wasn’t so volcanic as it was back to rolling hills and lots of greenery. We arrived back to our humble abode around 6:30pm, picked up Brendan and dashed off to the climbing wall at National Park. The kids went climbing for an hour and Geoff used the wireless connection. Then back to make dinner. The Crossings is slowly filling up with people which is nice because it doesn’t feel so much like a ghost hostel and there’s some interesting people to chat with. This was New Year’s Eve, a pretty mellow night overall. We had some yummy Mexican food and filled ourselves up then watched Invictus on Geoff’s laptop. Loved the movie and being in NZ, it was the perfect rugby movie to watch even though…well I won’t say who wins if you don’t already know. Watch the movie!