Land of Mordor

Next stop, Tongariro National Park. As with almost all of NZ, part of Lord of the Rings was filmed here. We stayed about 15 minutes out of town in another one of these towns that exists only to house tourists and travelers. Our plan was to do the Tongariro Crossing, a 17 km hike that takes all day. These plans, however, quickly changed as I put on my hiking boots and discovered that my feet were still pretty sore from the Glow Worm caving experience.



So we moved on to plan B which included a 7 km hike that was relatively easy and scenic, and didn't tear up my feet further.