Ohakune, Waitonga Falls, and Gravity Canyon

Su recently got a new camera so we were a bit snap-happy lately. As New Zealand is such a beautiful country and the area we are in is particularly beautiful, it is proving very difficult to sort through which photos to post up on the blog. I think this photo does the place justice though:

The reason Su is standing beside a massive carrot (by the side of the road incidentally) is because we have travelled through Ohakune which is the North Islands top ski location and also New Zealand's carrot capital. Don't be fooled though - the carrot in the photo isn't real - I have broken teeth to prove it.

We were feeling particularly energetic (must be the mountain air) so we decided we would trek to Waitonga Falls. The photos in the information centre we went to were spectacular so we decided it was worth the expended energy. After a stunning walk of a whole 40 minutes (well... it was uphill) we finally got to the Falls:

 

You might notice a distinct lack of water here - so did we. I might photo-shop this photo later to add in torrents of water. It was a nice walk nonetheless and besides, this is the view we had from our camper van the next day:

I also promised in the last blog that I would show a better photo of Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom to those film fans) and here it is - again partly obscured by cloud but that's as good as it got:

We passed by a bungy place on our travels called Gravity Canyon. As we were walking up to have a look before deciding whether to actually partake, we saw an old man and his son (in his 30's I'd say) come towards us deep in conversation. The son was saying "So the cable is faulty! Wow!" before looking up at us and saying "Oh hello there!" with a big smile on his face. Joking or not, that was enough to put us off and doubly so when we saw this:

The old guy seemed genuinely disappointed when we said we weren't doing it.

We stayed in a place called Hunterville that night - which had a free campsite. I think it also had a pub.

We are off further south tomorrow for some beach-side fun!