ROAD TRIP
DAY 3:

Again we woke up fairly early in order to hit the road for a long drive to the town of Taupo. Taupo is home to New Zealand's biggest lake and Mount Tongariro, which was used in Lord of The Rings for Mount Doom and Mordor.

Our morning greeted us with a beautiful sunny day and God's promise gleaming across the sky :-) We made a stop just a few miles outside of Auckland to take some pictures of the beautiful scenery before heading on past Auckland, another 120miles from Taupo. We drove through what seemed like Canada - big evergreen trees in a big mountainous Forest which was lovely.

                     Our stop where we took some pics....

  










   Driving past Auckland....

      More pics en route....

We got to Taupo and looked at our trusty Backpacker's Hostels Booklet for somewhere to stay and chose The Rainbow Lodge at 30 pounds per night. It was fairly big, had a big kitchen, sitting area, eating area, TV room with VHS tapes and player (For those born after the year 2000, ask your parents what VHS is!) an internet room and lots of other backpackers. We dumped our rucksacks and went for a walk around the lake which was only a 5 minute walk away form the hostel.

                  Lake Taupo....

Mount Tangariro in the distance....

.....New Zealand black swan                      

  View of the mountains from our hostel....