New Zealand - North Island

New Zealand's North Island is a beautiful place with volcanic mountains, craters and lakes, lush rambling forests and stunning beaches. When we are driving along we are reminded very much of home with the undulating green hillsides and the sheep keeping the grass growth under control!

These are pictures of the Huka Falls and the Waito River. It was a really sunny day and the water looked clear and turquoise.

Mam and dad Elves, does this photo remind you of one taken about 30 yrs ago of me in a field wearing tartan trousers?

This picture is from the top of a 2 hour gruelling mountain hike through native bush looking over the lake at Taupo.

Does anyone recognise the view in the next few pictures, the mountain is called Mt Ngauruhoe in Tongariro National Park - What do you mean you've never heard of the place? Would you recognise the stage names perhaps? Because the park played the role of 'Mordor' and the mountain played the part of 'Mount Doom' in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.


In fact we've included a scene from the LOTR film (see the picture below) in this frame Gollum (that's me) is panicking at losing his 'precious' (the ring - note the ring in this frame is really a twist of straw) as the 'Hobbitsisss' scheme on throwing the one ring in Mount Doom - the place where it was made. What do you think of my acting?

This last picture is Elvis and I off to the ski slopes (still in the park) the slopes are opposite Mt Doom and Mount Taranaki, which is another famous mountain as it was the stand in for Mt Fuji in the Tom Cruise's film 'The Last Samurai'.
It was freezing at the top, but there was plenty of fresh snow - we knew those ski lessons we had in Bulgaria would come in handy!

Later that day we drove through an area used as 'the Shire' in the LOTR film - nee pictures though, it was chucking it down!