OK. Auckland, New Zealand. Its Sunday morning at about half six and we just got off our 14 hour flight.
First order of the day while waiting for our room to be ready: caffination. If you can believe it, this is a medium latte.
The coffee shop is also frequented by some birds.
As was the Japanese restaurant we had lunch at.
Matt and I in front of somthing really tall - the SkyTower
A sot straight down from 55 floors up. This glass floor is nearly 4cm thick...
Matt standing over an oversaturated big drop
A view out towards our hotel
The docks and a nearby bridge
Three adjacent windows. One
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Three. A possible panorama?
Matt in front of the Auckland skyline
The first of many panoramas
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Another panorama
Yet another panorama
A non-horizontal panorama...
A panorama sweeping down
A vertical panorama. Is that sill a panorama then?
The last panorama for today, I promise.
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A view down from inside the lift
A view up at the SkyTower from under the “SkyJump” platform
This is the line people fall down
... to here
Leaving Auckland station. Sorry 'bout the reflections, no tmuch we could do about those.
The Auckland bay
Um. Proof that we were on a train? not sure why I took this...
Passing through the outer parts of Auckland
Look, houses
Still a bit of sunrise in the sky
Out of Auckland now
Out in the countryside
That's a lot of greenhouses
Quite a lot of farmland near Auckland
As it ot brighter it became easier to take non-blurry pictures...
The occasional sheep.
Welcome to Paerata
A racetrack?
Now entering Mercer
Entering the wetlands
Wetlands indeed.
A Coal fired power station provisdes for much of the North Island
Starting to get hilly.
Weather is not looking too good
Don't like the look of those clouds...
The first of a series of tunnels
A picture from a viaduct
Another viaduct...
The weather took a turn for the worse after lunch
A photo across the train
OK, the weather is pretty naff now.
The best shot I got from this viaduct unfortunately. Dan you reflection!
Maybe I can postprocess it out later
There's a lot of viaducts this side of the island
The coast near Wellington. Can see why they need the boots now...
Wellington, end of the line.
Wellington train station
The exit of the Glowworm caves. No photography inside I'm afraid..
The path back to road level
..long after everyone else has left
Serious foliage.
The first of many pictures taken on the drive to Tongariro National Park
The weather wasn't too bad.
The scenery starting to get hilly
Lots of cattle around in the countryside
Houses nestled in the trees
Hmm, roadworks
For reference, that's 30kph. Painfully slow...
Wiggly road ahead...
A panorama from outside a petrol station in the National Park Village
The weather had really cleared up
The Discovery Lodge,where we were staying,is doen this road.
end panorama
These shots were taken when it was very nearly dark, long exposure (15 seconds)
You can still see sunset colours in the sky
This is actually a manual panorama attempt. Long exposure doesn't work with the stitch mode...
end of panorama
The five bed chalet we had to ourselves...
Me trying to be arty,
The next day the weather was much improved...
You can just see the peak above the cloud layer here
And off we go. A very clear day
We're walking almost due East, which makes photos difficult
Only a few wisps of cloud in the sky at times
The first panorama of the day
7. bit bright
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The path we were wandering along
Matt with mountains
I like this one.
You can see the cloud rolling off the volcano to the right
Not sure this is good for the camera in retrospect
Another one I like
A shot up the gully we're travelling in.
That sky is very blue
A small waterfall
That'll definately be a backdrop at somepoint
A small stream running alongside the path
This volcano is best known as Mount Doom.
The initial, fairly flat path is quite long. Don't forget ths on the way back
Its that stream again
A steep hill we didn't go up.
You know its too bright when you have to shade your camera to get it to take a picture
Back the way we came
Where the path crosses bogs its raised
That same stream runs through
Matt forging ahead
Its that stream again.
The direction we're heading.
Panorama II: Revenge of the scenary
Yet more of the path.
The foot of the major ascent section
The way we came. Not a bad view already
The path. doesn't look too bad, but its prety steep
.. and quite long
Me trying to show how steep these steps are. Not sure it works.
really really long.
See that pale line at the bottom of theblack hill? that's the path we came from
Panorama 3
but wait, there's more ascending to be done.
A section of the path
Matt, mid ascent
The path into Mordor.
An experimental portrait panorama, for extra pixels.
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The path we came up
The way we came, from yet higher up
Volcanic rock predominates. Not surprisingly
Portrait panorama 2
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Matt, volcano. Volcano, Matt.
The south crater has steam rising from a large
Well, we hoped it was steam.
Mt Ngauruhoe, otherwise known as Mount Doom.
The path runs up a ridgeline
Up till here we had it easy. this is about a 45 degree slope
Matt considers his options
slope not enough? Its also loose earth and rock with sections of slick clay. Absolutely awful. Bring walking poles.
The view over the ridge is good though.
See those dots against the horizon? Thats people standing where we're going. crap.
Mount Doomon a good day
Aa view aross the south crater from a precipitous slope
The south crater does have a small lake
The south crater between some crags of rock
Mount Doom once more.
Back down the hideous slope
It wouldn't be quite so bad if there was less of this slope to deal with.
At last - the view from the top of that slope- the red crater. Panorama time
In the distance, the blue lake.
The Emerald Lakes, living up to their name
A panorama from the highest point we went to
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40 and done.
Matt with blue and emerald lakes in the background
A traditional landscape panorama of the red crater
12 and done
One last panorama.
Here's us standing at the Tongariro summit
OK, OK, so we're standing near the Tongariro summit.
The top section of that hideous path
And the bottom.
Mount Doom, without cloud...
