Thursday 27th February
The streets in Wanganui are very smart and the town is noted for having 1000 hanging baskets.

We drove to the edge of town for a stroll round Virginia Lake.

The Winter Garden at the end of the walk was full of bright begonias and other tropical plants.

We headed north on Highway 4 and could see why some of the Hobbit scenes were filmed around here.

We came across this fence where about 100 metres in length is strung with old shoes and it seems that this is a development of the American Shoe Trees which are made simply as a tourist attraction.

This is the river that we were following and we stopped here for lunch by the side of the road.

We drove into Whakapapa village in the the middle of Tongariro National Park and this is our first sighting of Mount Ngauruhoe, the middle one in a line of 3 volcanoes.

We followed the trail through the forests to Silica Rapids. In a couple of places we crossed the river as we headed upstream.

The route led us on to a good wooden boardwalk across the swamp with the cloud covered summit of Mount Ruapehu in the background.

We arrived at Silica rapids and climbed a little higher to enjoy the views and fresh air.