After leaving Rotorua, we headed south past Lake Taupo to Tongariro National Park. This is a huge park in the center of New Zealand’s North Island. We stayed at the Whakapapa Holiday Park located inside the National Park. It was very clean and very nice. The scenery was beautiful, and there were treks all around. In the winter, this is a ski area. There are active volcanoes in the area that last went off in 1995 or 1996, and the lodge contained lava flow maps and escape routes in case one were to blow.
Tongariro National Park is home of one of the most beautiful one-day treks in New Zealand, the world, or the North Island depending on who you believe. We wanted to go on this trek, but the weather high in the mountains was not accommodating. Instead we went on some of the smaller treks around the area. Our first day we went on a two hour trek to Taranaki Falls as pictured above.
Absolutely gorgeous! Is Beth the person in front of the falls? I’d think standing below/in front of the falls would be very refreshing. The walk to the falls must have been envigorating, too.
“Escape routes . . . in case”–I don’t like the sound of that. (Ahh, to put a winking face or not . . . .) Still, what beautiful scenery to get to see! I hope it still works out sometime to do that one one-day hike. Smart to heed the weather. Or wss there a ranger or someone there, prohibiting entry–making the decision for you? A penny for Beth’s thoughts while she was sitting and looking at the falls. (Or maybe she knew you were taking the picture and was thinking of you. )
Margaret,
To take the one day hike you had to buy a ticket to get dropped off and picked up. The people there are the ones who decide if the weather is okay to go or not. When we showed up in the morning the weather was bad but they said they were still going to go. We chose not to go because we didn’t want to hike in snow with low visibility to take pics and see the scenery. We found out later that they got there and decided it was too bad to go anyways.
9 Comments »
Comment by josh — January 4, 2007 @ 6:56 pm
After leaving Rotorua, we headed south past Lake Taupo to Tongariro National Park. This is a huge park in the center of New Zealand’s North Island. We stayed at the Whakapapa Holiday Park located inside the National Park. It was very clean and very nice. The scenery was beautiful, and there were treks all around. In the winter, this is a ski area. There are active volcanoes in the area that last went off in 1995 or 1996, and the lodge contained lava flow maps and escape routes in case one were to blow.
Tongariro National Park is home of one of the most beautiful one-day treks in New Zealand, the world, or the North Island depending on who you believe. We wanted to go on this trek, but the weather high in the mountains was not accommodating. Instead we went on some of the smaller treks around the area. Our first day we went on a two hour trek to Taranaki Falls as pictured above.
Comment by Clara — January 4, 2007 @ 9:03 pm
Absolutely gorgeous! Is Beth the person in front of the falls? I’d think standing below/in front of the falls would be very refreshing. The walk to the falls must have been envigorating, too.
Comment by josh — January 5, 2007 @ 1:35 am
Yeah that is Beth sitting by the falls.
Comment by Gloria — January 5, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
Hi Josh,
This is my first glance at your site. This is beautiful. Have a great time.
Gloria
Comment by josh — January 5, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
Hi Gloria. Glad you like it.
Comment by Adam — January 5, 2007 @ 6:36 pm
Wow, nice! How tall is the water fall?
Comment by Peg Moore — January 5, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
“Escape routes . . . in case”–I don’t like the sound of that. (Ahh, to put a winking face or not . . . .) Still, what beautiful scenery to get to see! I hope it still works out sometime to do that one one-day hike. Smart to heed the weather. Or wss there a ranger or someone there, prohibiting entry–making the decision for you? A penny for Beth’s thoughts while she was sitting and looking at the falls. (Or maybe she knew you were taking the picture and was thinking of you.
)
Comment by josh — January 5, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
Hey Ash, I’m not sure how tall it is. I was try to look that up but couldn’t find any info. I would guess about 100ft or so.
BTW – your comment didn’t show up at first because you hadn’t commented before with that email or something. I had to approve it.
Comment by josh — January 5, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
Margaret,
To take the one day hike you had to buy a ticket to get dropped off and picked up. The people there are the ones who decide if the weather is okay to go or not. When we showed up in the morning the weather was bad but they said they were still going to go. We chose not to go because we didn’t want to hike in snow with low visibility to take pics and see the scenery. We found out later that they got there and decided it was too bad to go anyways.
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