Today I will take you to a beautiful place called Tongariro National Park. It is the oldest national park in New Zealand, and it is one of the locations where The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was filmed.
The first day of our trip to Turangi was cloudy, so Dad, my cameraman, couldn't take as many good photos as he wanted. But, Sunday, the last day of the dog dancing summer camp, turned out to be a gorgeous day with blue sky, depsite a weather forecast of some showers.
After the dancing camp closed in mid-afternoon, we set out for a drive to Tongariro National Park.
My humans had been there before as tourists from overseas, and at that time, over fifteen years ago, they stayed at a famous hotel called "Chateau Tongariro." My mum had looked forward to their stay there, but unfortunately the hotel was under renovation then and the inside of the building was dim because the outside was covered with scaffolding. They were so disappointed that they shortened their stay from three nights to just one and checked out the next day. So, this time they wanted to see the hotel as it should look normally.
Shortly after we left Turangi and entered an uphill road to the national park, we found a sign of a scenic view point. From there, we could overlook the Lake Taupo.
We got back into the car and continued our drive, and then Dad found the hotel we were heading for in a long, long distance.
The hotel looked like a drop of white paint at the bottom of the mountains. When we came to the turning to the road to get to our destination, Mum found a "No Dogs Allowed" sign. But, we decided it should be OK if I stayed in the car, and we kept going.
Here it is. The hotel Chateau Tongariro!! It looked so beautiful sitting at the end of a golf course.
We wanted to go a little closer to the hotel, but we stopped there and turned around because there was another "No Dogs Allowed" sign. No dogs are allowed in the national park because the famous New Zealand native bird, Kiwis, live there and are protected.
The next day we came back to Auckland. Although Dad wanted to take photos of the beautiful Lake Taupo, he couldn't because of a heavy rain...
Wow - you may not have had much time to take photos, but you sure made the best of things! Those are some spectacular sights!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous photos once again Cinnamon, you have talented humans! Shame you couldn't get closer to Chateau Tongariro but keeping the Kiwi's safe is pretty important. Its been a pretty on-and-off summer this year hasn't it. At least you got a couple of sunny days
ReplyDeletePepper
hello cinnamon its dennis the vizsla dog hay jeepers they dont allow dogs in middle erth??? that is a shaym!!! hay i thawt kiwis wer froot but dada sez kiwis reely ar birds and kiwi froots ar reely chineez goosberreez but isnt a goose a bird too??? i am verry konfyoozd!!! ok bye
ReplyDeleteyou are having so much fun! will be catching up with u again. beautiful pictures by the way (:
ReplyDeletemissing cookie always.
Wow I love that first picture of you. Very nice! The one with the hotel is really cool too. I miss all the bright, pretty colors of summer. :)
ReplyDeleteHey Cinnamon! Honey sent momma a bag of "kiwi poo" and she ate it. What's up with that? They must keep the doggies out of the park so that all the poo is for the humans.
ReplyDeleteSlobbers,
Mango
Oh Cinnamon - your cameraman takes such great photos - I wish I'd booked a photoshoot with him before we left NZ!! I love that 1st photo of you with the blurry mountains in the background - Hsin-Yi is always desperately trying to take portrait shots like that but never knows how to make the background blurry like that.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great park - I have never been nor my humans but we have heard all about it. That chateau place looks lovely but such a shame that they don't allow dogs!!
Slobbers,
Honey the Great Dane