Day 2 - Taupo

Well that was one of our coldest nights yet! It was so bloomin cold we could see our breath! The gas bottle didn't want to play ball either because it too was also freezing! After a painstaking amount of time we managed to boil the kettle and knock up some porridge in an attempt to warm us up from the inside.

New Zealand offers a lot of markets at the weekends so we headed to Taupo's Riverside Market for a mooch. It was small but pretty cute and worth the wander. I even managed to resist the most amazing looking cakes (mainly because they were $5 each). They did look good though! We then went for a mooch around the main town looking at the shops. There was a gorgeous home shop with all kinds of great tat that I could fill our house with!

After some lunch we made our way down the side of Lake Taupo and along the edge of Tongariro National Park, or as you may also know it, Mordor. The drive gave us stunning views of the snow covered mountains. We did um and ah for a long time as to whether we should do the Tongariro crossing but have decided that the winter just isn't the time to do it. It has also been cancelled the last couple of days due to poor weather conditions, including 75kph winds. We are just going to have to come back to New Zealand again and do it in the summer.

Our next stop is Napier on the East Coast so we have decided to camp up in Waiouru in the National Army Museum car park and head to Napier in the morning. As I'm writing this post it is only 5pm and I am already cold. The sweet lady in the museum also advised us to keep warm as it's going to be a cold one!Read more