The large Lake Taupo is great holiday resort, mostly for locals.

The Tongariro National Park has stunning scenery and the best tramps in New Zealand for all levels of ability.

It is easy to see why the backdrops were used heavily in the LoTR films.

We spent a couple of days here in glorious weather. In hindsight, we could have enjoyed a much longer stay.

A short walk on the first afternoon in the National Park was good exercise ready for the full tramp the following day.

Those with very young kids – or a grandson in our case will recognise some strange New Zealand names cropping up in  books or TV programs such as Whakapapa in In The Night Garden.

Some fabulous views. This one overlooking a very old hotel.

The next morning after a hearty breakfast we were dropped off at 8:00 a.m. at Mangatepopo car park and started the Tongariro Crossing trail.

This was one of the most varied walks we have ever been on. It skirts two volcanoes – Mount Tongariro itself and Mount Ngauruhoe. There were desolate volcanic craters, deep red vertical rock formations and many other marvellous geological formations. About half way through there was a steep, narrow scree over 100 metres long down to the Emerald Lakes. This scree was particularly scary to negotiate. Many trampers slipped badly.

We could smell the sulphurous geysers – they were not just confined to Rotorua.

We were so lucky with the weather as we know of others who could not do the Tramp because of low cloud & mist.

There are a couple of videos showing the stunning scenery here & here

The only bad part of the experience was the last 3 hours or so of the 19Km tramp which was continuously downhill. My poor toes were being continuously squashed into the front of my walking boots. In the end it was agony. Before the long descent we were making such good time that we thought we would be catching the earlier car back to our lodgings. In the end we took the 5 pm lift back.

In the evening the owners of the Lodge we were staying at cooked us a great meal & of course we got the obligatory T-shirt.

Overall a marvellous hike. For us it was up there with the Inca Trail.