Ohakune, summertime in a ski town

After taking the ferry back from the South Island to the North Island we stopped in Wellington and found some dinner at a little Vietnamese restaurant off of Cuba Street where we had some delicious pho and fried rice. Since the ferry got in around 5pm, we planned to stay in Wellington, but when we were booking our accommodations, EVERYTHING in Wellington was booked for the weekend.

We only found out that day why when we saw hoards of people around town dressed up as super heroes, cows, sailors, studded leather cops, cheerleaders, and just about anything else you would normally see during Halloween, except they came in groups of 4 to dozens. We learned that it was the Rugby Sevens being played, which is a huge deal in New Zealand. When we got to our motel about half an hour north of Wellington we watched a few of the matches, including New Zealand blank Papua New Guinea 35-0.

The next day we headed north along a slightly different route than when we came down. The topography was most valleys and jagged (as opposed to rolling) green hills.

Ohakune is a ski town and is very similar to US ski towns, except of course on New Zealand population scale. The nicest and most modern building in the town was the tourist information center; otherwise ther were just a spattering of shops and restaurants, and we eventually decided on the fish and chips takeaway. After dropping our bags off at our motel, we took a drive toward Mount Ruapehu. We saw the other side of this mountain a few weeks earlier during our hike of the Tongariro Crossing. The drive up takes you through a dense forest and up past the tree line where the landscape changes into rocky and desolate.

Our very nice inn-keeper gave us some great details about the trails in the area and let us know that this waterfall off the side of the road was used in the Lord of the Rinds as the waterfall that Gollum is hunting fish in.

We reached the end of the road, which is at the base of the ski slopes. During the summer, it is eerily quiet.

The view from the top that was almost in the clouds was pretty spectacular and looked out over forests and green fields below.

This is Mangawhero Falls that falls into a very interesting volcanic red bowl. We were also treated to a wavering rainbow from the spray.

We parked the car and headed out on a trail towards Waitonga Falls. On the way we crossed a small suspension bridge, passed through coniferous forests, and this portion along these small mountain top pools.

At the end of the trail we were treated to Waitonga Falls set in this beautiful valley.