Tongariro National Park
Accommodation: Wed 12th Feb – Thurs 13th Feb
Wed 12th Feb
It was another glorious morning and you will already know, from my previous post, that we started this with a rather eventful bike ride. It was after 9 am before we got away from our New Plymouth hotel and the drive up to Tongariro National Park was uneventful apart from a most interesting stop at a cafe for lunch. We stopped in this tiny little village of Piopio, population of 400, but found this cafe, Fat Pigeon Cafe, to have the most amazing variety of food. On googling I subsequently found that Piopio had been put on the map thanks to all the Hobbit films. So that solved that mystery that we had encountered.
We found our Mountain Heights Lodge accommodation at Tongariro but quickly dropped our bags so that we could set out for a walk. Most people spend at least two nights here and do the 6-8 hour Tongariro crossing walk. However, we just had the afternoon so opted for the two hour Taranaki Falls loop walk. This was a lovely walk through a diverse range of landscapes and our host had suggested we take the loop in the anti clockwise direction which was a great suggestion. By doing so, you are then walking towards and faced with a beautiful view of Mount Ngauruhoe for much of the first hour.
There weren’t a whole lot of options for dinner but we ended up dining at The Park Hotel and had a nice meal there. It was a short drive from our lodging up to the hotel and, in hindsight, it might have been preferable perhaps to stay at this hotel as it looked quite nice despite receiving just a 3 star rating but I had dismissed this option initially because the rooms were quite small. We had a lovely large room with a large balcony and spectacular mountain view back at Mountain Heights Lodge but the trade-off was that you needed to drive for dinner.
We had both enjoyed our short time in Tongariro and were glad we got to do a walk in such magnificent weather. Our lodging was very clean and comfortable and I would recommend this with the caveat being so long as you don’t mind having to drive for dinner. Our lovely large room with the spectacular view was a compromise worth taking though. Some had commented to us that it was a pity we couldn’t stay longer and do more or a longer walk but both of us agreed that the Taranaki loop walk was all we wanted. Neither of us are really bush walking folk unfortunately but I take my hat off to those who could stomp around for many hours of the day doing so. Our one night stay was, thus, the perfect amount of time needed to experience this part of the world. Tomorrow we head to Lake Taupo tomorrow where we catch up with my sister and her husband for the last week of this trip.
