Road Trip : Tongariro National Park & Forgotten World Highway

The night that I spent in Mangahuia was pretty damn cold, must have gone close to zero during the night. I woke up few times early in the morning, shivering like hell. Started to think what the hell was I doing on the road this time of the year.. Once I had my coffee and brekkie I headed towards Whakapapa township to get the latest weather information for Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This day wouldn't be suitable for it but maybe the next day.. On my way to Whakapapa I stopped briefly at Tawhai Falls and did I wee walk.

Once I got to Whakapapa, I spent about 30mins in the i-Site just browsing things and since they didn't have the latest forecast I decided to take another walk, this time to Taranaki Falls. This was a 2hr walk thru some absolutely scenery areas, every now and then I imagined myself being in Lord Of The Rings -movies, after all, parts of the movies were shot in here. And, close-by Mt Ngauruhoe was Mt Doom in the movies.

After the walk I went back to i-Site to assess whether or not to do the Alpine Crossing on the next day. Forecast itself was slightly better than on the previous day but it was still a bit so-so for me and since I hadn't done any alpine trekking before and especially since I would have been alone I decided to ditch the idea. I'll do it again when it's summer. Since I started plannin this trip I had a desire of drivin a road called Forgotten World Highway between Stratford and Taumarunui so I was headin towards the latter. Before I got to Taumarunui I stopped on Piriaka Lookout to have my lunch, not a bad spot at all..

I parked in caravan park in Taumarunui and experienced another bloody cold night, this time it must have gone below zero. On the next morning I drove to town and did a bit stock-up, Taumarunui itself was a tiny town with highway runnin thru it and pretty much everything was on this main street, seemed fairly boring town. Oh, well, time to hit the road. And what a road that was, Forgotten World Highway must be one the best drives - if not the best - I've ever driven, at least when it came to scenery. Just a amazing drive. Somewhere in the middle you hit gravel road for about 20km's and for awhile I was imagining myself drivin somewhere completely elsewhere than in New Zealand, more like somewhere in South America.

I stopped in Stratmore briefly to decide which way head next and I choose south, heading towards the coast. I had few options of where to camp for the night and my first option was a caravan park in Ohawe Beach. The shoreline was alrite and I snapped photos but the camp ground.. ..nah.. So, I headed back to Hawera and parked up in caravan park in there. Luckily this wasn't as cold night as the previous ones.