As I wrote in a recent blog, we had plans to hike four waterfall trails on our day-trip to Tongariro National Park in New Zealand a few weeks ago. After we took a rain delay on hiking the first falls and then found a bonus falls instead we moved on to the second falls on our original list, Mangawhero Falls ( Read more... )

New Zealand Travelog #37
Matamata, NZ - Sat, 20 Apr 2024, 12pm

Where is Middle Earth? In one respect it exists only in fantasy, a creation of J. R. R. Tolkien in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion. In another respect when director Peter Jackson made 4 movies set in Middle Earth starting twenty-some years ago, various ( Read more... )

New Zealand Travelog #29
Whakapapa, NZ - Tue, 16 Apr 2024, 4pmToday we've visited Tongariro National Park in New Zealand. I'm writing a summary of the day right now rather than a trail-by-trail blog because with us having managed 3 hikes plus numerous hop-out-and-take-pictures stops today the latter would span probably 5 journals with photos and ( Read more... )

New Zealand Travelog #28
Ohakune, NZ - Tue, 16 Apr 2024, 8am

As I mentioned in my post from last night, we stayed in the Hobbit Motor Lodge in Ohakune, NZ.


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New Zealand Travelog #27
Ohakune, NZ - Mon, 15 Apr 2024, 10pm

After our short hike at Percy Falls outside of Wellington we continued north to the small town of Ohakune, NZ for the night. Overall it was 308 km from the airport. The drive got wearisome after a while. Driving on the North Island is different from the South Island. Different, but not ( Read more... )

New Zealand Travelog #25
WLG Airport - Mon, 15 Apr 2024, 1pm

This morning we flew out from Queenstown. And wouldn't you know it, the skies were finally clear. The whole fucking week has been clouds and rain, and now I see this from the top of the stairs boarding the jet:


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