Wednesday 31st December

Tuesday 30th December

Monday 29th December

Sunday 28th December

Saturday 27th December

Friday 26th December

Thursday 25th December

Wednesday 24th December

Tuesday 23rd December

Monday 22nd December

The day dawns bright and still at 6.45am!


The Smith family - Kelsey, Ryan, Lee and Maree

I hate pictures of myself.......

...I really do!!

Crossing the South Crater - "It's just like being on the moon up here isn't it?"!

Mount Ngaruhoe and yours truly.....

What appears to be cloud at the top left of the crater turned out to be a bit of puffing steam...!

After crossing the craters the weather began to close in. Luckily, we'd seen the best of the walk in brilliant weather :)

There was a little bit of snow in some sheltered spots. Can you spot Kelsey in the background gathering snow for a snowball she subsequently hurled at me?!

Ah! A nice, peaceful, relaxing stop at Ketetahi Hut - along with about 50 other people all out for a fresh day in the wilds on NZ!

The longdrop tanks were being changed over whilst we were here. A new tank was helicopter lifted in to where a man was waiting at ground level to change the full tanks over with a new one. The downdraft caused havoc with the loo seats and the longdrop 'contents', as Lee found out whilst he was in there! And the foul air was blown right through the crowd each time a helicopter came by. Y-U-K!!!

Sunday 21st December

Ooh yes - that looks like (more!) rain to me!!
Wanganui to National Park road

Saturday 20th December

Waiting for the ferry in the rain!

Crossing was pretty good - good enough for a few pictures! Pencarrow Lighthouse, Wellington

Strange courtship rituals......

....and a missed opportunity :( Wasn't quite quick enough to get the settings right to get both of these two in focus which I'm annoyed as hell about!! Ah well - next time (yea - right!!)

The other bowl of cherries