Tongariro National Park

I started the day with a final walk around the Orakei Basin near Courtney‘s house, this time early in the morning as the sun was rising. It is such a wonderful neighborhood, and I even found a free little library there! David dropped me off at the train station for the next leg of my journey. 

Today I took the train from Auckland to National Park, a town that is at the entrance to New Zealand’s first national park, . Tongariro is one of  the oldest national parks in the world.  Yellowstone and Glacier are also in the top 10 of oldest national parks and I visited them earlier this year! Hmmmm…maybe I need to travel around to more of them… I managed to get a little more reading done as I knew which parts of the trip were less scenic than others. I am reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which won the Man Booker prize in 2013. It takes place during the New Zealand gold rush in 1866 it really gives you a sense of what life was like for many different kinds of people during that time. For most it was pretty miserable. I did spend plenty of time enjoying the beautiful scenery and noticed a few more things than on the way up, especially public artwork. And I made sure to hold onto my phone for dear life when I was in the open air observation car. There’s no going back to get it if it gets dropped!

I arrived in national park just before 2 o’clock and walked the three blocks to my hotel, which has a fantastic view of the three mountains that dominate Tongariro National Park – Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. Mount Ruapehu is the only one that still has snow on it, and being the tallest and largest is definitely the most impressive. I’m looking forward to doing some hikes in the area-there are several waterfalls and lakes to explore!

I spent the afternoon checking out the town, which is quite small. I went food shopping at the only grocery store in town which is attached to the only gas station in town. They had a pretty good selection of food though. There is also a dairy, which seems to also operate as the local op shop as they had clothes and shoes for sale in addition to snacks and drinks. I was impressed with the Kiwi camp, a campground next to the railway station that not only had toilets and showers, but also laundry and cooking facilities, and it was all very clean. I had to go to the local bar to buy wine, and when I was there I noticed that most people in the bar were staring at the TV absolutely enthralled. I turned to see that it was the World Cup finals in overtime (congratulations Argentina!)

I spent a very relaxing evening reading, listening to Christmas music and watching dusk fall around the mountains. Can’t wait to check it out tomorrow!