After a very warm night in a small town of Waiouru, we headed to Whakapapa Village, located at the base of the access road to Whakapapa ski field on the western side of Mt Ruapehu. Whakappa is one of two commercial ski fields of Mt Ruapehu, the other one is Turoa on the southern slope. Whakapapa, the larger. Well, we made a full round of Tongariro National Park, it just took us couple of days.
We had a plan to ski but unfortunately there wasn't enough snow yet. The season is generally from June to October depending upon ski condition. I guess we were only two weeks early. Had there been more snow, there would have been more snow ball throwers. We didnt mind though, we had snow ball throwing game season for a while and sat by the pristine looking mountain pond.
The mountain was all brown although half covered with white snow and I wondered why. So, I found out Mt Ruapehu is one of the world's most active volcanoes and the largest active volcano in New Zealand. It is also the highest point in the North Island but I couldn't tell how high we were at. Well, we could have seen the eruption too looking at the frequency of eruption the mountain had, it looked like it is the time again. Unfortunately, it didn't happen and we didn't have to run.
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| Whakapapa Village |
