Thursday, February 24, 2005
What is the plural of volcano?
Valconi? Volconos? Volcanoes?
Well, whatever, we saw a plurality of them. But before I get to that, let me clear up a few details. That park with the big tree (and I mean big) that I couldn't remember the name of, was the Waipoua Kauri Forest - see what I have to deal with - these names aren't obvious. Also typing on different keyboards everytime I use a computer is tough, I tell you. I'm a bad typist with a poor memory to start with. I'm backspacing every 10 seonds to correct something and half the places we visit have names I forget an hour after leaving. Maybe I should just tell you all about the food, beer and wine I'm drinking and forget the culture, history, geography crap.
Well, I'll keep trying for now, but it's tough, I tell you, even if I'm repeating myself.
OK. We're now on the south Island, but to get here from dragville (really Dargaville) we had to traverse most of the north island and we didn't do that directly. We stopped for a few days in an area called the "central north island" in the Rough Guide to New Zealand. (a great guide by the way - thanks B). We were surrounded by volconoes - not that any were active while we were there. Some have been active in the last 10 years - I guess that's "now" in geologic terms. North of Tangariri is Lake Taupo. We didn't stop there on the way here, but we plan to on the way north again. It's the largest lake in the southern hemisphere. It was created when the Taupo volcano errupted around 200AD. It was 10 time greater than Krakatoa and St Helen's combined, and put so much dust into the atmosphere that Romans noted unusually red sunsets in their records of the era. I could go on with amazing volcano facts, but I doubt anyone has read this far without skipping to the next paragraph.
Anyway, to be specific, we stopped in Tongariro National Park and stayed at a lodge called Skotel (I presume for Ski Hotel, since it's a ski area in winter and apparently this year they were even skiing there at Christmas). We had thought we would do the Tongariro Crossing, which is billed as the best and most popular one day hike in New Zealand. We arrived on Monday and planned to stay three nights. Tuesday to recconoitre(sp), Wed to do the hike, and Thurs to pack up and move on tot he next adventure. On Tues we dedcided to recconoitre by taking a 3hr hike (each way) to some falls and a lake further on - 6 hrs in total. By the time we returned, we had decided (Maureen and I anyway) to not do the Crossing as it was a lot more rugged and we were aching already - so we wimped out. Day 3 we Maureen and I did a much tamer walk to another falls and called it a day. Barry claimed he had a sore back and had never planned to do the Crossing. He sure razzed us about not doing it ourselves though.
In summary Tongariro was a fascinating and unusual landscape and we were glad we went there, even if we didn't do the famous walk. Maybe next time. Karen - when you think skiing in NZ - think Tongariro - even if the lava sometimes does flow 2 metres away from the ski lift - it only happens occasionally.
Thursday we drove to Wellington where we took the ferry to the south island. Thats were I am now. It's also 1:30 AM, so I'll stop now and catch up later. What a great hotel we found. Hi-speed internet and they loaned us a laptop to use overnight (all free)
Well, whatever, we saw a plurality of them. But before I get to that, let me clear up a few details. That park with the big tree (and I mean big) that I couldn't remember the name of, was the Waipoua Kauri Forest - see what I have to deal with - these names aren't obvious. Also typing on different keyboards everytime I use a computer is tough, I tell you. I'm a bad typist with a poor memory to start with. I'm backspacing every 10 seonds to correct something and half the places we visit have names I forget an hour after leaving. Maybe I should just tell you all about the food, beer and wine I'm drinking and forget the culture, history, geography crap.
Well, I'll keep trying for now, but it's tough, I tell you, even if I'm repeating myself.
OK. We're now on the south Island, but to get here from dragville (really Dargaville) we had to traverse most of the north island and we didn't do that directly. We stopped for a few days in an area called the "central north island" in the Rough Guide to New Zealand. (a great guide by the way - thanks B). We were surrounded by volconoes - not that any were active while we were there. Some have been active in the last 10 years - I guess that's "now" in geologic terms. North of Tangariri is Lake Taupo. We didn't stop there on the way here, but we plan to on the way north again. It's the largest lake in the southern hemisphere. It was created when the Taupo volcano errupted around 200AD. It was 10 time greater than Krakatoa and St Helen's combined, and put so much dust into the atmosphere that Romans noted unusually red sunsets in their records of the era. I could go on with amazing volcano facts, but I doubt anyone has read this far without skipping to the next paragraph.
Anyway, to be specific, we stopped in Tongariro National Park and stayed at a lodge called Skotel (I presume for Ski Hotel, since it's a ski area in winter and apparently this year they were even skiing there at Christmas). We had thought we would do the Tongariro Crossing, which is billed as the best and most popular one day hike in New Zealand. We arrived on Monday and planned to stay three nights. Tuesday to recconoitre(sp), Wed to do the hike, and Thurs to pack up and move on tot he next adventure. On Tues we dedcided to recconoitre by taking a 3hr hike (each way) to some falls and a lake further on - 6 hrs in total. By the time we returned, we had decided (Maureen and I anyway) to not do the Crossing as it was a lot more rugged and we were aching already - so we wimped out. Day 3 we Maureen and I did a much tamer walk to another falls and called it a day. Barry claimed he had a sore back and had never planned to do the Crossing. He sure razzed us about not doing it ourselves though.
In summary Tongariro was a fascinating and unusual landscape and we were glad we went there, even if we didn't do the famous walk. Maybe next time. Karen - when you think skiing in NZ - think Tongariro - even if the lava sometimes does flow 2 metres away from the ski lift - it only happens occasionally.
Thursday we drove to Wellington where we took the ferry to the south island. Thats were I am now. It's also 1:30 AM, so I'll stop now and catch up later. What a great hotel we found. Hi-speed internet and they loaned us a laptop to use overnight (all free)
