Slept a little longer today which was nice although I still woke early enough to do the Day 5 entry (not on-line mind you as the internet still wasn’t working). After packing up we managed to leave by about 8.20am. We didn’t have much sightseeing time as we had to get to Talihape by 2.30 to meet Rob.
We arrived at Turangi at 9.45, had a quick coffee (or at least Mandy Did) got fuel and tried to find the river walk that Mandy had read about. Found it. It started off in a very uninteresting way and we wondered if we were on the right path. Fortunately it got better and better and we reached our end point – the Major Jones Bridge – which was an old suspension bridge about 10m above the water. One of the things that I am realising is that there is much more water in NZ compared to home. Any river like this in Aus would be a bit of a trickle but here it was fast moving and big. After crossing the river, the track started to climb high up into the trees so we ended up above the river with a 30 – 40 metre sheer drop below us.
We then headed for Mordor (which is in the Trongariro NP). It looks a long way on the map but NZ is a relatively small place so we got there quicker than expected. Unfortunately we couldn’t see Mt. Ruapehu due to low cloud cover. We reached Whakapapa (careful how you pronounce this) Village and the Chateau looked extremely out of place – apparently this is where Karin Jooste has stayed lots of times. After a quick check of the visitor centre, we went further up to Iwikau Village which is basically a ski resort. Again due to cloud cover we decided against going on the chairlift. It was cold and windy! By the way I think this is Mordor. Back in the car at 1pm and we head for Talihape looking out for the various sights Rob instructed us to find on the way.
1 – “lots of gorges along the long and winding road west of the NP” – one gorge and a relatively straight road which only took 10 minutes to drive
2 – “look for the giant carrot at Ohakune, then go back to the last dairy and buy a chocolate éclair” – we found the carrot but the dairy was seasonally closed – very disappointing Rob. It was here that we actually caught a glipse of Mt Ruapehu too. From the south we could see the snow covered mountain in amongst the clouds.
3 – “the train wreck memorial near Tangiwai” – we found this.
4 - Lastly, we had to meet at the giant gumboot at 2.30pm. We found it and found Rob, Kerri, Trene & Walle. After a quick snack, we headed for Gravity Canyon. I’d forgotten about this completely so I hadn’t had a chance to psych myself up for the Flying Fox. At $155 it’s an expensive 10 minutes but what a ride it would be. 1km long, along a narrow (40m) canyon at about 160kph – very impressive. It will have to do this next time. Apart from the rides, it was an amazing gorge.
Off to Waitarere Beach and we arrived there at around 6.30pm. We had a nice BBQ dinner, a walk on the beach in the dark, some yummy sweets and then bed. All this was punctuated with lots of laughter.
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