4000 km & Proud Citizens Of The Republic Of Whangamomona

Yep, it finally happened. We've become citizens of the Republic of Whangamomona. We've got passports to prove it, and photos will be up on FlickR in a minute.

After a very short night and a maybe future-wise interesting chat with our lovely host Dion when checking out this morning in Wanganui, we started the most time-consuming part of our whole NZ trip at around10 am, which would take us to the Mt. Egmont (Mt.Taranaki) National Park, and then to Lake Taupo via the Forgotten World Highway #43. This was actually a ridiculous detour, as you can get to Lake Taupo from Wanganui within 1,5 h......................... it took us 10 h in the end, but it was well worth it.

Driving up to the plateau of the active volcano Mt. Egmont (Mt. Taranki in Maori) was something that we will remember for quite a while, the view from up there was absolutely breathtaking and overwhelming. The only downside was that its summit was in the clouds so we couldn't see the crater from anywhere.

As if we hadn't seen already more beauty than we can possibly take in with our irrelevant human eyes, the Forgotten World Highway topped many of those beautiful things in many ways. The landscape was out of this world. There are no words to describe it, take a look at the pictures and judge for yourselves. Rob called it "Teletubby Land", and it indeed looked a bit like an artificial landscape made up for a childrens program.........yet it was all real. The drive took us just about as loooooooooong as I had expected, and because we took a detour over a gravel road to see NZ's highest waterfall, Mt. Damper Falls. It also took a 30 min walk over farmland, uphill and downhill, escaping from lost goats that were running about, and when we finally got to our location for the night in Turangi at the bottom of Lake Taupo, we were so deadly shattered that we decided to skip staying in Taupo tomorrow which would have meant to check out at 10 again, but stay for another night here indeed. The lodge we are in now is also amazing, we have an own little hut-type house with a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and lounge, and are currently enjoying a nice glass of NZ white wine, a glass of Speight's Gold Ale, and watching some Sky TV. Tomorrow we will have a lie-in for a change instead of getting up at 8 like almost all other mornings, and then go for a short drive into Tongariro National Park to see the line of several active vulcanos including Mt. Ngauruhoe (or "Mt. Doom" for the LOTR freaks).

On Sunday, we will totally relaxedly drive up to Rotorua via Taupo, and check out all the unique thermal experiences around those two towns.

For now, we're just gonna watch some more TV and then s-l-e-e-p.