Heading to the North

In Picton, we took it easy and enjoyed the great campsite. Then we took the ferry heading east, yes really (!) to go from the South Island to the North Island. It was very stormy during the crossing, but Müsli is now an old salty dog and had no problems. We sat on the deck for 3.5 hours and admired the gigantic landscape (Breathtaking, Extraordinary, Spectacular).

In the capital of New Zealand, we spent four days, once again a 'real' city! A beautiful city. We even visited a museum for two days: Te Papa. Great!

From there we went to (attention cooking round!) Whanganui and then to Mount Taranaki. Müsli actually wanted to take the photo for the bedroom wallpaper here (because he is on the front of our travel guide), but it requires luck. It is said that he can be seen without clouds for 50 days a year. We tried for three days from all directions and heights. First from the Visitor Centre on a 3-hour walk. The next day from the north, just like he is on the travel guide. We even hiked for 6 hours. But no luck! We still took the photo at the spot, just imagine yourself behind us (photo with 'lake') the beautifully even-shaped 2518m high Mount Taranaki. And on that day, at least we were lucky to have the view in the other direction. Also an incredible sight!

The next morning, we crawled out of our tent and behold: There it is! Someone asked me why we had to go through 'this ordeal'. ;-)

We then continued on the so-called Forgotten World Highway to the next volcanoes, including the highest volcano on the North Island, Mount Ruapehu.