Deutsch | English

Hiking and cycling in Tongariro NP, Rotorua, the Bay of Plenty, the Shire, the Mountain of Love and Coromandel

Tongariro NP

Tongariro National Park is New Zealand’s oldest national park and home to three active volcanoes: Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro.

I spent three days in total in the area; on the first, because of very unpleasantly wet and cold weather, I only made it to Whakapapa Village and on two short walks there. Visibility was miserable and I could have spared myself the walk to the waterfalls, as water was falling from the sky the whole time anyway...

On the second day I did the popular Tongariro Crossing, and here too a bit of bad luck: at 7 in the morning still sunshine, at 7:30 the first clouds around the summits, at 8 dense fog, at 9 rain and a short time later a storm, and still zero visibility. Very cold.

Here are a few pictures from when the weather was a little better for a moment ...

Never mind, the walk was not beautiful, but interesting... :)

The day after, a loop by bike around the national park, south to National Park Village and on to Ohakune and via the Desert Road north back to Turangi.

Rotorua

On via Taupo for an afternoon to touristy Rotorua; it was simply too much tourist bustle for me, so after a city tour by bike I rode on towards Whakatane on the coast, in the Bay of Plenty.

The campsite in Awakeri, which has its own hot springs and feeds a pool with them, was welcome relaxation.

I followed the coastal road to Tauranga and into the surfers’ paradise of Mt Maunganui.

Hobbiton

before I then made a detour inland, as the coastal road north of Tauranga is apparently very busy and narrow and is sometimes called the suicide highway among cyclists.

This excursion took me to the Shire of the hobbits from the “Lord of the Rings” films at Matamata and via Mt Te Aroha (“Mountain of Love”) to Paeroa, home of the world-famous New Zealand drink L&P. The girls in front of the big bottle were on some party outing and afterwards wanted to take pictures of each other with me and my bike. I had my peace again in the Karangahake Gorge, which is well worth seeing, while Waihi Beach is a nice bathing beach but quite touristy.

Somewhat overcast weather the next day towards Whitianga, but even such days often had their personal “sunshine”; I remember, for example, a nice acquaintance in a coffee house and a good conversation: I had time on this holiday and New Zealanders are mostly not hectic people either. The whole of life is clocked a bit slower than with us in Central Europe, I had the impression, even if a holidaymaker’s impression may be somewhat distorted.

Coromandel

on north on the Coromandel Peninsula to Colville and Cape Colville on roads that were unpaved at the end. The good weather and the scenic coastal landscape were a wonderful end to the trip before it went on for a few days to New Zealand’s biggest city, Auckland.