We just spent a nice easter weekend in Tongariro National Park. Our two criteria for the weekend residence were: 1) on the north island and 2) cheap. So we ended up in a ski hut as it's off peak here even over Easter ;)

Saturday we tried to climb Mt Ruapehu, an active volcano that last erupted in 2006. We made it quite far, but then the weather turned bad and we sight went down to about 30m. And even if we did reach the top, we couldn't have seen the crater lake, so we decided to return. Sunday we hiked to Zeke's hut in the Hihitaki Reserve in excellent weather. It's not a very popular trek in fact we only saw guy who was actually hunting there. But a great hike with a lot of thick primary forest and excellent views over the whole Tongariro area.

It's getting quite cold here in the nights already - the Tongariro Parc is quite a bit cooler than Auckland, probably because of the altitude. Our hut's insulation reminds me of old east german cars: mostly cardboard. And there is only a tiny electrical heater in here - fine for April but we definitely don't wanna stay here in Winter for skiing ;)

On the way back we stopped at the 'Craters of the moon', a geothermally active area with lot's of stinky (sulfuric) gas coming out of the ground.