The Peanut Gallery: Friday...Whanganui to Lake Taupo via Mt Ruapehu

We woke up in Whanganui on Friday morning in our lovely bed and breakfast. We headed over to The Yellow House for breakfast and had a great time listening to the New Zealand accent in all it's unique splendor. Breakfast was SO GOOD.

Then we headed to the shore to see the ocean that we couldn't see at night. It was so windy and wild there. Not the kind of beach to go hang out on. We got really wet.

Our road trip to the volcano was gorgeous! It actually reminded us A LOT of Rwanda. Except in Rwanda every hillside was covered in farms and homes. So beautiful.

We realized that hiking the volcano was not in the cards, timing wise, so we changed plans and found a couple of waterfalls to hike to with great views of the towering volcano.

3 miles short of our trailhead, the road was closed and we had to turn around. It was so cool as we were getting closer though. The weather turned to winter and the road was covered in slushy snow and ice with snow resting on top of palm-tree-adjacent trees.

We back tracked and found another road that would lead us closer to the volcano, but the cloud cover was so intense we couldn't see anything past the first couple of hills. We knew there was a volcano hiding somewhere in the clouds and then...magically, the clouds disappeared. From a grey day to clear blue skies in a matter of 10 minutes. And then....THIS.

We kept driving and driving, amazed at how far up the mountain we could go. Eventually we arrived at civilization. A ski area! I had no idea.

We got pretty darn close to the crater lake.

The views on the way down from Mt Raupehu were absolutely stunning.

It couldn't have been 30 minutes later that we were in an entirely different environment as we approached Lake Taupo.

In a matter of 2 hours we drove from an ocean beach to rolling mountain hills to a rain forest to a snow covered volcano to an enormous lake. That doesn't remind me of any other experience I've had in any other place.

We arrived in Taupo in time for dinner and we had a very chill night playing cards and watching England vs Denmark.