The southwest of the North Island

After 4 very hiking-heavy days with beautiful weather in Tongariro NP, rain was forecasted here - time to load up the car and head west (the east would not have been a good idea due to some immense cyclone damage).

Unfortunately, the west is not particularly attractive from a tourist's perspective. We visited New Plymouth with the goal of maybe catching a few pictures of Mt. Taranaki (another volcano that prefers to hide behind clouds). For that, we also did another hike (12.2km, 782 meters altitude, 4 hours) - unfortunately without success. But in the end, we still had success from a few other points.

Then we headed south to Wellington, where we spent another 2 days before the ferry crossing. In the Wellington area, there are theoretically opportunities to see kiwis in the wild as part of guided tours, but unfortunately, they were already fully booked for our two days. So we stuck to a relaxing standard program: a classic city tour on one day and wandering through the seaside suburbs on the other day - both nice but not new to us.

The ferry then caused our heart rate to rise a little on the third day - in the end, it was about 3 hours delayed, and in the meantime, we were worried that it might be canceled altogether. But in the end, everything was fine, we reached the South Island after 10:00 pm and the only real loss was a meeting with our daughter's 'second family' (her host parents, with whom she had lived during her school year in NZ) - they now live near the ferry terminal. But the meeting will definitely be rescheduled, as we will pass through the region again...