Wellington - New Plymouth ⛰️

The north island adventure officially begins.

Unfortunately today was another longer travel day, with a total of 4/5 hours driving. The scenery on route, was completely different to the South Island. The snow capped mountains had suddenly taken a rest, and were replaced with constant hills, greenery, cows, sheep and the occasional alpaca.

We were on schedule for another big difference in terms of hiking, we were going for more of an afternoon hike, which was looking likely to end up with us returning in the dark. Therefore, the head torches were packed.

Off we set, from research, we were fully aware that we had steps ahead of us.....a lot of them. However, fortunately for us the trail was very well built and had a wooden track to follow from start to finish, so we were very happy and impressed.

We absolutely smashed the way up, beating the expected time by half an hour!

Let's just say that in classic Callum fashion, I was a little disappointed by the view we got from a hike that took 2hrs! The photos we saw online, showed a really cool reflective lake in front of a big solo mountain peak......well let's just say I've seen bigger puddles in Southampton!

Hayho, the disappointment aside, it was still beautiful! As of late, we have been predicting the time we are going to get back to the van from our hikes (Mhari is winning 2-0), and unfortunately Mhari won this one again, as we flew back down!

Tonight was a free camp stop for the night, so we parked up in a small council car park, had some dinner and read a few chapters of our book before getting some sleep!Read more