Kiwi Exp. - Taupo to River Valley

We continued southward toward our last destination on New Zealand's North Island as well as the country's capital, Wellington. However before this we would be staying the night at the remote River Valley lodge near Taihape.

On the way to River Valley we stopped at the Tongorariro National Park. Despite the Alpine Crossing still being closed, we could hike through some of the park. We took a short trail to, you guessed it, Tawhai Falls. We walked through a landscape similar to Dartmoor in November as the rain came at us sideways. You could see in places where the scenery may have been used for scenes in Lord of the Rings where Frodo and Sam begin their journey into Mordor.

When we returned to the bus, Jared, our driver, told us that he had previously had two very big Lord of the Rings fans on his bus. These fans were so big that they not only purchased a replica Ring from Hobbiton for several hundreds of NZ dollars but then chartered a private helicopter for thousands of NZ dollars to take them up to Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom in the films) to have their pictures taken in poses similar to those in the film. Geeked out.

We took a small road that switched back and forth around and down hillsides into River Valley. We got as close as we could but a jeep from the lodge still had to take our rucksacks the last 2-300m of steep track that we trudged down on foot. The rain continued to follow us but the fire in the lodge threw out a warm embrace as we entered. The smells of dinner and the shiny clink of glass from the bar greeted us furthermore.

It was Gali's last night with us before returning for home so we celebrated with happy hour jugs of beer and drinking games that including trying to pick a matchbox up with your mouth from behind a chair from a starting position of sitting and not touching the floor throughout. Also trying to get under a large wide table without touching the floor. Sounds stupid now but at the time, very fun.Read more