From Mount Doom to beach life

The last couple of days we have been driving quite a lot with the car, we are now like 40 kilometers north of capital Wellington on the west coast.

We left the Holiday park in Rotorua and went south, passing Lake Taupo- a supernice spot. But we only stayed there a short while because we wanted to find our next camping place (we don’t book anything in advance- just see more or less spontaneously as we go). 

We ended up in Tongariro National Park and oh my god, really breath-taking beautiful (which I never can capture on camera). Found a nice camping spot for like 3 euro per night (no water…but there was a “toilet”, with a risk of being stung by thousands of bees in your ass while sitting down on it). This place was located under several beautiful, still very much active, volcanos. 

I totally forgot the name of the mountains/ volcanos but Peter Jackson used one of the mountains as a filming spot for Lord of the Rings. Mount Doom! We were camping underneath Mount Doom, whaaat. The supernerd inside of me loved it! 

There were some beautiful water creeks there were we (ok, only Erik and an elderly gentlemen) took a swim. Lovely, but one night was enough.

Next day we headed even more south. We had a camping spot in mind already, but after 6 hours of getting there (500 km) we saw a sign that the camping was closed off because something had blocked the road to get there (?). So tired and hungry and with no plan we headed even more south and suddenly saw a camping sign in a small coast town called Paekakariki.  It is just by a stunning beach, with warm ocean to take long swims in. We will stay here for about two days before we visit Wellington, taking a break from our travels J In others sense, all is very well down here.

This is Mount Doom from LoTr.  Less scary and more beautiful in real life isn't it ;)

Freakin cold water, as you can see :P

This is where we are camping at the moment...

Some cruisin' (truth be told I have in total driven 2 hours on these roads before I get a nervous breakdown because 200 cars are waiting behind me)