07 March-Sulphur Point, Rotorua; Waimango Volcanic Area; Huka Falls; Tongariro National Park

On the 7th we did a lot of walking around thermal/volcanic areas which stunk like sulphur (much like the entire town of Rotorua). But they were really cool to look at. In the morning, we walked around Sulphur point which was in Rotorua. There was a big lake with lots of ducks in it.

Here are mom and dad...you can see the steam rising in the background...that's all sulphur-y, volcanic stuff.

Peace dude :)

Here are dad and i bravely going close to the bubbling mud and sulphuric steam.

Me, admiring the view.

These cute little birds are pukeko's...they are a native bird in New Zealand and have huge feet! Near Tony and Steph's house in Masterton there are a couple families with little babies that are sooo cute!

On our way down to Tongariro National Park we stopped at Waimangu Thermal Area...totally looks like Jurassic Park yay! :) All the steam is from hot springs and other volcanic stuff.

It was kind of rainy while we were walking around again....but echo crater still looked cool.

Mom in front of one of the craters....steamy!

This is inferno crater...it was so cool looking! The water in this crater rises and falls and ranges in temperature from 95-167 degrees Fahrenheit! When the water is rising, it's more of a muddy color than this beautiful blue and it spills out into a hot spring...luckily we caught it when it was low so we could see it blue....the blue is caused by silica in the water.

Here is a little baby geiser we found.

Some more volcanic stuff haha. It was like being on another planet.

Here are mom and dad being the true tourists they were hehe....checking the map and reading all the descriptions of everything we came to :)

The volcano that created this lake and all the craters only erupted around 100 years ago...it's the most recent volcano to explode in new zealand.

Another placed we stopped on our way to Tongariro National Park was Huka falls (which you might remember from one of my previous posts).

If you look really close you can see me and dad standing on the bridge waving to mom :)

Yay!!

We finally made it to Tongariro National Park...it's in a town called National Park. This is Mt. Ruapehu and Mt. Tongariro.

This is the view from our hotel room...the mountain/volcano on the left is Mt. ngaramahoe (sp?) and we were set to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing the next day which starts at Mt. Ngaramahoe and goes all the way to mt. ruapehu & tongariro...it was a 19.5k hike!!


So this night we all took it easy and prayed that we would have good weather the next day so we could hike...all week long the weather reports had been for rain!