The Midsection of the North Island

We took a beautiful drive through the midsection of the north island to Tongariro National Park. This is New Zealand's oldest National Park established in 1887. There are three volcanoes here and two of them are the most active composite volcanoes in the world. This is Mt. Ruapehu. It last erupted in 2007.

In the winter these crazy kiwi's ski on this volcano! It's called Whakapapa Ski Field. The locals said they have enough snow to ski from about the end of June until the end of September.

We hiked up this rocky volcano. Then took two chairlifts back down.

This is a waterfall on the way up.

Beautiful view of the valley from the top.

Found a sign. Danger!

Cliff!

Watch out!

We ventured further north to the Lake Taupo area. About 5 minutes outside of Taupo is the 11 meter long Huka Falls. These are the largest falls on the Waikato River, one of New Zealand's largest rivers.

The Aratiatia Dam is the first of a series of hydroelectric stations on the Waikato River. Four times a day the dam is opened and 90,000 liters of water is released from the spillway per second. They do this to demonstrate how the river used to flow prior to the dam being built.

Before the water release.

After the water release. It was neat to watch the river valley fill up with water.

The Rest of the South Island and Beyond...

Lake Tekapo is a beautiful lake to the east of where we stayed in Mt. Cook National Park. On a super clear day you can see Mt. Cook from here.

This is The Church of the Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo.

It's beautiful inside.

Fairlie, New Zealand. For those of you who know Farley (the doggie) back home:)

Have you been to Broomfield, New Zealand? 2km down the road.

Black Betty has! This is the gate to the school. Besides a few houses, this is the whole town.

The Bueller River on State Hwy 6 on the way to Nelson Lakes National Park.

A swan coming out of Lake Rotoroa to see what we are having for breakfast, in Nelson Lakes National Park.

From Nelson Lakes National Park we made our way back to Picton. We took a very early ferry from Picton across the Cook Strait. Black Betty is patiently waiting in line to board the ferry. Lucky John got to drive Betty onto the ferry at 6am, backwards!

Picton from the ferry.

Wellington is New Zealand's capital city. We got to go on a free tour of the Parliament House. This is "the bee hive" where all the politicians offices are located.

Then we took the Wellington Cable Car up the steep hill into the nearby suburbs. The first cable car opened here February 22, 1902 to create easy access into the city. In 1979 they updated the cable car for safety.

Great view of the city from the top.

This is the old cable car on display in the Cable Car Museum.

We had a nice walk through the beautiful Botanical Gardens back to the city streets.

Another pretty flower in the Botanical Gardens.

Wellington from across the harbor.