Mount Ruapehu

We took a midweek trip to the mountain today, taking our children along with the gang from Jan's workplace. The students, some of whom have never even seen snow, were picked up at an early hour and we met up in Kihikihi to take the back route down towards Taupo for our first stop, taking a quick break at the famous Huka Falls. There was a huge amount of water flowing through the narrow channel meaning it was as impressive as ever.

There was quite a bit of fog on the way down, but this gave us some spectacular views at times, with the hills peeking through the snow white sunlit fog being quite an eerie but spectacular sight.

A drive down the eastern shore of Lake Taupo in the spring sunshine afforded us our first glimpse of the mountains covered in snow. The sun caused the snow to almost glow, giving it an ethereal beauty. After stopping to inflate the inner tubes we had taken for sliding on the snow, we stopped for lunch on the mountain. It was a stunning day, with Mount (Fuji'esqe for want of a better term) Taranaki being visible over on the New Plymouth coast, and the sun being complemented by a very pleasant 16 degrees temperature. It was a case of slapping on the sunscreen and we made our way up to the top of the road. It was quite funny to see this rag-tag bunch of kids with inflatable inner tubes compared to the ski slope fashionistas in their expensive equipment - who, if I am being perfectly honest, were giving a few strange looks at our motley crew. Some of these poor kids come from the lower levels of society and haven't had much of the good things in life. To see them sliding on inner tubes, snow and boogie boards down the sledding area was heart warming. As I couldn't do much after having surgery not too long ago, I took to taking photos and pelting them with snowballs as they sped past, something I regretted later as they all plotted to get me, which they did in abundance, duly assisted by my own kids!
A treasure hunt was organised with prizes being buried in the snow followed by a sort of coconut shy with mini-snow mountains fashioned around chocolate bars. You only got the chocolate when you hit a little hill with a snow ball from a distance away. The trouble was, when the successful kids ran to get their prize, all thoughts of hitting the snow mountains was forgotten by the others who immediately took aim at the kid in their line of fire.

Unfortunately the time came to leave and we took a different route on the way back, going via Taumaranui with us stopping off for chips and fish in Te Kuiti.

We drove a total of 500k today, which is quite a lot for a day out, but for the looks on the kids faces today, it was totally worth it.

Photos to follow.....