Tongariro and Co.

After a short week of resettlement to New Zealand, the call to outback adventure is hard to resist. The shortest way is unusually the nicest: so we're now driving on "Gentle Annie", the road that nobody knows between Hastings and Taihape. Thanks to Trevor, we've got traditional Scottish music to entertain the drive.

We arrive unhindered in one of the most touristy area of the North Island: Tongariro National Park - Taupo - Rotorua. After the gumboot capital (Taihape), we go through Okahune, the carrot capital (2/3 of the carrots from New Zealand are grown in this area).

We circumvent a snowy Tongariro (Soron and Frodon would have been freaking cold in a Mordor like this) and we focus on the waterfalls and gorges which proliferate all around. As we keep on driving North, it starts smoking from everywhere!! We take the opportunity to paddle in the sulphurous (and free) public bath from Reporoa, at about 45°C.

Before the smoky environment of Rotorua, a "nature and culture" break is essential. Te Urewera National Park remembers us that New Zealand is not only Great Britain's big farm. It's Maoris territory, even more fierce than the ones from East Cape, rebels who didn't want to sign an agreement with European settlers (Waitangi treaty).

During two days, we're "wilderness explorers" (kaw kaw kaw)! It's quite 'humid' here with 6000mm of annual rain: vegetation is so lush, waterfalls are numerous and camping life is more interesting. The gravel road is narrow, winding, with wandering stock, sometimes with a trapper coming out of the bush with a bag full of possum hair...

Our last adventure in Te Urewera is a walk under giant podocarps, listening to birds, among them the last parrots of New Zealand and looking for glowworms. We finish the walk in the dark, that makes glowing more obvious...

After a quiet night on the shore of one of the 18 lakes of Rotorua (in NZ the camp warden are also Dutch :) ) and a bath in the hot polls of Kerosene Creek, we're ready for the day: smoky lakes, botanic garden, marae, bubbling sewer system, mud pools, ... We're lucky the three millions annual tourists aren't here yet (Do they like this farting smell?!)

The sun is with us for the last day of this intense trip. We follow the coast until Coromandel peninsula where a wwoofing of a new kind is waiting for us. According to the pictures, you weed with climbing gear and helmet here... ;)

PS : we're a bit late with the publication of our article about the Samoa. Please be patient ;)