Karangahake Gorge and Wellington

We started the week with a trip to Karangahake gorge, which was a mining area during the New Zealand gold rush. The path crosses over a couple of rivers and goes through an old train tunnel, which was about a kilometer long.

On the way home from Karangahake, we stopped at Owharoa falls. They seem to have more waterfalls than they know what to do with in this country.

The next trip was down to Wellington, where I had a job interview on Thursday. Tauranga to Wellington is a 7 hour drive; there aren’t any motorways in New Zealand, and the roads follow the terrain a lot more so they can get quite windy. However, this also means that road trips are a lot more scenic than they would be in the UK – all of the photos below were taken from the road. This is a lake we stopped at on the way:

The day after my interview, we climbed up Mount Kaukau, which at 445m is the tallest point in Wellington. On a nice day the view looks like this:

However, on the day we climbed it the mist closed in so we saw precisely nothing. 

It was still a nice walk though! We finished off the day with a boardgame night at Ash’s friend’s house.

On the way home, we drove past Mount Ruapehu in the central plateau. This is a sort of half desert, half heath area and probably one of my favourite in New Zealand so far. It’s also the New Zealand army’s firing range, so you’re not allowed off the road!

Right next to Ruapehu is Mount Nguaruhoe, which was used as the filming location for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies.