Forgotten World Highway and the perfect volcano

From our canoe trip we continued south on the Forgotten World Highway to Mount Taranaki volcano

What is the Forgotten World Highway and what did we see here?

• The Forgotten World Highway is a 150km long road back in time! Winding roads through beautiful farmland (horizontally folded hills!), jungle reclaiming the land, and cute little rivers tootling

Through the old Moki Tunnel

• Fuel up at Bushlands Campground (true story somewhere in the middle of nowhere!) bonfire, pizza oven, glowworms sticking to rocks like little starry skies, strolling in the canyon, wild honey...

• In Whangamomona, get a stamp in your passport for $2. You should be able to declare yourself a republic. Because of local disputes! (only 40 adults live in that town...)

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The perfect volcano

We fell in love from a distance. Mt. Taranaki is perfect both from Google Earth view and live in front of it! So we had to climb it. The fact that the next eruption is overdue didn't stop us...

The ascent of 1,966m was mostly an unforgiving gravel path with no grip, everyone was crawling. Every step 1.5x.

Was it worth it?

YES YES YES! Watching the sunset in the sea, sunrise ABOVE THE CLOUDS, and we have never seen so much of the MILKY WAY before. Great people in the hut, descending between the clouds. Heavenly ;)

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From here we then leisurely went to Wellington, also lovingly called Welly...

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A little knowledge about New Zealand

If there were 100 people in New Zealand

65 would be of European descent

15 Maori (2nd official language! Sounds nice)

12 Asians

7 Pacific Islanders

1 Other :D

Where do they live?

65 North Island / 19 South Island/ 11 Australia / 4 Rest of the World / 1 On the road

Now the best part:

Population: 4.9 million (Germany:       83 million) 

Population density: 18/km2 (Germany:         232/km2)

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So crazy! Forests in bliss ;) so off to Welly...