Some more images that have been gathering dust (or magnetic charge?) in my hard drive for a while, this time from a short visit to the Tongariro National Park. My wife was at a closed conference at the Chateau Tongariro, so I wasn’t even an ‘accompanying person’ this time. I stayed at the backpackers up the road and cooked my own meals. But it did allow me to get out early and stay out late. The first evening I drove up the mountain and saw this classic western arch:
Ngauruhoe was topped by cloud and getting little light, but the foreground was ablaze:
Next morning I walked to the Taranaki Falls, a 6 km loop along a very well formed trail:
The falls are quite something, about 20m high.
There was not a lot of water, after quite a long dry spell. Here’s the view from the top:
I wasn’t game to get close to the edge, but Anne from the Netherlands has no such fears:
That evening we had clear skies and lovely light. Ngauruhoe was looking very peaceful
while the Chateau was at its best. Well, for summer time at least. It does look even better with lots of snow on Ruapehu behind it.
But the highlight was when I drove up the mountain as far as I could and, resting the camera on a bean bag the bonnet of my car, got this next shot:
It’s hard to believe that Mt Taranaki is 125 km away!
