We had planned to start the 3-day Round the Mountain tramp (Kiwi term for hike) today at the Tongiriro National Park today. However, with the excessive rain and low clouds over the past few days, we decided to go to our leader's friend's house in a town called Tihoi for the day and start the trekking tomorrow. Fortunately, the weather did clear up.
This morning we left the Maori house where we slept last night and drove to a town called Taupo to do some grocery shopping for the hike. Along the way we stopped at river to check out a beautiful waterfall (see below).
Since the hike will last 3 days and since there are no restaurants out in the "bush", we have to carry all of our food on our backs during the hike. I teamed up with Philip and Andy to share food for the trip. After the shopping, I grabbed some lunch from a bakery and ate while looking at the the immense Lake Taupo, which apparently is the largest body of water in NZ. Here is a picture.
Next we drove to a town called Tihoi, which is where one of Adam's friend Catherine (I think that's the right name) lives. She and her husband work at a school for 14 year old boys who go there for about 16 weeks to take classes while doing a lot of outdoor/adventure training. Since it costs about $20,000 to do the program, these kids are pretty well off. It sounds like an incredible program. The afternoon in Tihoi was wonderful. It was hot since the sun finally came out, and there were vast green lands with large volcanic rocks and sheep all over the place. Basically we just hung out and explored the area for a while before cooking dinner. Philip, an avid fisherman who brought his fly rod to NZ and bought a fishing license, actually caught a fish in the creek. Here are a few pictures of Tihoi.
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