From Whakante via Rotorua and Taupo to the Tongario Crossing

Hi everyone,

Lina and I are currently at a campground in the middle of nowhere with no reception or anything, so it's a good opportunity to write the remaining blog posts for you and upload them when we have internet access.

In this post, as the title might already suggest, it will be about a day when we drove a lot. As I mentioned in the last post, we decided to give the Tongario Crossing another try and therefore drove this relatively long distance, considering our current circumstances. But to make it less boring, we made a few nice stops along the way. First, we stopped in Rotorua, where we were around noon. After getting some information about our options in the city at the iSite and being told to come back at 2 pm for information about the Tongario Crossing, we first went to the lakeshore where we had our lunch. Then we walked through the Government Gardens and visited some of the hot pools. Rotorua is actually a large volcanic area, where the smell of sulfur is quite strong. We walked back through the city and strolled through some souvenir shops. We were back at the iSite a little after 2 pm to get the latest information about the Tongario Crossing. The weather report sounded quite promising with some light clouds and a sunny afternoon. So we made our way towards Taupo. On the way there, we stopped at a hot spring, where we dipped our feet in the warm water, and then drove to a mud pool, which was bubbling more or less intensively. In Taupo itself, we only bought a few small things for the hike the next day. Among other things, garbage bags, so that Lina's shoes wouldn't turn into swimming pools again. It was already quite late and so we made our way to our campground without further ado, where we also stayed during our previous attempt at the hike. Just before we arrived, it started to rain, not heavily but constantly. Fortunately, we had decided to eat wraps, so we didn't have to cook and could sit in the car. When it was still raining after we finished eating, we took on the challenge of turning the car around while we were inside. What can I say, it works not only from the front seats to the back seats, but also the other way around, without ever leaving the car. We were very proud of ourselves. So we only had to go out to make the bed and wash the dishes. Then it was time to go to bed early, as we wanted to leave at 6:15 am the next day. So at 9 pm, it was lights out.

This is also the end of this post. In the next one, I'll tell you whether the rain stopped or if we ended up swimming instead of hiking.

Until then,

Your Jessi