Tongariro Crossing / River Valley

Our first proper Kiwi tramp....but adapted to our budget! The Tongariro is supposed to be the best one day tramp (a walk) in NZ, but unfortunately its 17km one way which makes it a problem getting back to the car at the end of the day, so rather than do the very expensive nights accomodation with transport option (which we were told is the only way to do it!) we just parked Mo at the carpark at the beginning, getting a free nights camping there, before getting up early doors (6.30am) to walk the first half of the walk! Its a pretty cool walk past tonnes of volcanic matter (weird coloured lakes, lava flows (old) and crators)...but having reached over 1/2 way by 10.15am we realised that its only actually a half day walk and we were back in the carpark by luchtime to eat our packed lunch and energy snacks! Thoroughly enjoyed it, but Chris's knee didn't fair too well so we're gonna have to avoid these tramps for a while!

A cold, early start...at what point did we become middle aged ramblers???

Mt Ngauruhoe....aka Mt Doom (for the Tolkien fans out there!)

Emerald Lakes....

Still not ready to just chill out I read on in the guide book to discover that not far away from Tongariro was a Grade V white water rafting river so we set off to this riverside retreat called 'River Valley' from where we organised a 3hr rafting trip for the following day! We even splashed out, paying to camp at this place...the biggest draw being that it had a bar!! We got there just in time for happy hour and purchased our very first beer (from a bar) since being in NZ. The next morning we enjoyed a game of golf on River Valley's small pitch & putt coarse...remembering all my Mum's instruction I wasn't too bad off the tee, Chris's balls flying madly off in all directions (hours spent searching in the long grass!)...but despite this he still managed to win, mainly due to my appauling putting skills! I think our average par was about 10 per hole...luckily no-one was around to watch!!!

After lunch it was on with the wetsuits and into the river!! The river level was too low for the big rafts so instead we were put in small two man blowup kayaks...this meant that we had to stear ourselves down the rapids!!! It was a lot of fun, but there was the odd cross word to be had as we careered out of control over the rapids, generally backwards, thanks to a lack of understanding of our lefts from our rights!!! Back in the bar that evening the Kiwi Experience bus had pulled up, so the place was rammed! We'd been keen for a big party but turns out they all just sat on big table together, and were all pretty lame....so we just enjoyed a fair few drinks by ourselves, accompanied by the odd kiwi shepherd and his 3 litres of port!