Day 17 - Sun 28 Oct

Done Nothin'. We considered leaving this as the complete journal entry for today, but decided to elaborate somewhat. We woke up to rain, rain and more rain, so the decision to skip the 4 hour hike was an easy one. We took our time over breakfast and headed to Tongariro in the hopes that the rain may have let up by the time we got there, and that we would be able to take some of the many excellent walks in this area. Unfortunately this was not to be the case.

We did take a stop along the way to visit the DOC Trout Farm where we learned about the life cycle of a trout, and saw trout in all phases of growth from egg through to full sized trout. This farm milks eggs and sperm from wild trout which gives more diverse genetic lines than most other farms that use farm bred stock. We had a look at an underwater viewing area for a good close-up view of some trout in a river. Then we ran for it since we were getting soaking wet.

We drove into Tongariro National Park (and World Heritage Area), and more specifically into the town of Whakapapa. Straight to the visitors' centre, and the first thing we saw as we stepped through the door was the weather forecast, showing rain for the next four days. Bummer. We spent some time browsing the interesting displays. Listened to the staff recommending that people did not set out on the Tongariro Crossing in this weather, and lamenting the fact that many did regardless. The Tongariro Crossing is known as New Zealand's best day hike - seven to eight hours across Mount Tongariro. We would have liked to do this, but would have needed a bit more preparation, both in terms of fitness (at least a couple of four hour hikes to warm up) and equipment (first aid kit, waterproof pants and woollen undergear), even if the weather had been decent. Next time perhaps. With many other walks of varying length to choose from, all we needed was some decent weather since we were just not that keen to walk in the pouring rain and didn't want to freshen my cold.

We decided to stay in the area until tomorrow morning to see if the weather cleared at all, so toured a few campsites in Whakapapa and National Park (that's the village of National Park, which is just outside the National Park) before settling on a park in Ohakune where we spent the afternoon reading and catching up on this journal.