Tongariro National Park

On Monday (Labour Day), it was brilliantly sunny in Whanganui, and the forecast for Tongariro was rainy in the morning, but 0% chance of rain after 1:00pm, so we decided to head out after lunch. It is 120 km (74mi) away, and Google Maps said it would take about an hour and a half. Well, it turns out that if you're willing to drive 100kph (62mph) on narrow, curvy roads that might make a U-turn or slant dangerously towards a cliff at any moment, it would probably take you an hour and a half. We are not, so it took us well over two hours to get there.

Fortunately, I didn't mind how long it took at all, because we were driving through such beautiful countryside! You will probably be sick of my pictures of beautiful green hills before too long, but I'm going to keep posting them anyway, because I can't get enough of them. Also, on this particular trip, the clouds and the sky were stunning, so you get to see a bit of them as well.

This particular picture reminds me of something, but I can't quite recall what it is. I just love the single tree on the ridge, especially with the gorgeous roundness of this particular tree.

That's it for countryside pictures for now, but don't worry - there will be more!

After over two hours on our roller-coaster of a drive, we came to the mountain!! Lovely, isn't it? Well, as it turns out, this particular mountain was Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. I don't find it very Mount Doom-y with the snow all over it, but it's still cool. We are going to go back in the summer, so we'll see what it's like then.

We got out to go for a hike before it started raining again (0% chance or not, it sure seemed ready to pour). The trail started out like this...

... but very quickly became this. It was amazing how quickly the vegetation changed, especially having been so used to bright green!

And then we came out of the wooded area to see this! Beautiful, hey? I love how it is all "earth tones" and yet there are so many different colours!

This is me at the end of the trail surveying the area. Notice that I had to hold on to my hat - it was nothing if not windy up there!

This is a very cool carving at the visitor's centre, which we found right after totally giving up that we would ever find it. The eyes of the people are made out of Paua (abalone). A lot of artwork here has that in it, and it has lovely blues and greens in it, and it very iridescent. Unfortunately, all you can see in these ones is the glare, but they really were pretty.

Next, we got back in the car and headed out to another hike that we wanted to do, at which point the weather forgot about it's 0% chance of rain promise, and decided to pummel us with rain and wind. After waiting a bit for it to let up, during which time it intensified, we decided to head home.

On the way out, I noticed that even though it was raining were we were, the sun was shining on the mountain, light it up through the clouds. As always, the picture does not do justice to how cool it was!

As promised, more pictures of the beautiful scenery on the way home! And actually, we picked up two hitchhikers in Tongariro, so we had company all the way back to Whanganui. It was an American man and a German woman, both of whom were on Work-Holiday Visas, which are just for a year, but you can travel around NZ and work as you want. They were hitchhiking to Wellington to catch the ferry down to Picton and then explore the South Island. They were very nice, and it was fun to meet them.

We got out and took some pictures at a few particularly beautiful places, and this was my favourite, so I got a picture of J here.

A quick update: After writing my rant on Tuesday, I spent a lot of the day, as well as some of Wednesday, emailing and calling people trying to get things moving. I convinced the lady at the NZQA to accept the paperwork I'd already given her, so I am expecting to get my results in the mail very soon, and the Criminal Record Check people said that right now it's only taking about two weeks for Checks to get done, so that's not too bad at all. I still feel that things should have been handled better from the beginning, but I also think that it all worked out okay, and I am thankful for that.