Because of poor weather we did not go to Wellington. Instead, we travelled across the island towards Wanganui. On the way we passed through Palmerson North. These photos came from the web.

As photo 1 shows, the land was quite flat as we approached Wanganui. In Wanganui, we walked up the steep stairs to an observation tower that was on top of the hill. Photo 3 shows the view from there. We came down the hill via an elevator and then through the tunnel which is shown in the last photo.

Because of closed roads, we retraced our path from Wanganui to Bulls, and then headed north to Taihape which is shown in photo 1. It calls itself the Gumboot Throwing Capitol of the world, hence photo 2.

We arrived in Tongariro National Park a few hours later. We saw a "lookout for kiwi" sign, and kept on the lookout, during a short walk to Tawhai Falls. We also did another short walk, The Mounds Walk, but the visibility was so poor, those pictures were not worth keeping.

The following pictures were really taken on the next day, but they are shown here for continuity since then are all of Tongariro National Park,