New Zealand Scenic Drive, Taumarunui to Whakapapa,North Island,New Zealand Driving Tour

We drive from Taumarunui (the northern end of the Forgotten World Highway) to the Village of Whakapapa on the lower slopes of Mount Ruapehu in the Tongariro National Park. Its a wonderful sunny day and we see Mounts Ngauruhoe & Ruapehu as we approach. both of these were apparently combined to form "Mount Doom" in the Lord of the rings films. However most look at Mount Ngauruhoe as "Mount Doom" . Ambient Sound. This video is a small part of our 8 week trip around both North & South Islands of New Zealand.Starting in Auckland we rode the Kiwi Rail "Northern Explorer" to Wellington then crossed the Cook Strait to Picton.Most of these videos are in real time. North Island :- Landing in Wellington after a choppy crossing of the Cook Strait (50% of Driving New Zealand team were unwell) we stayed overnight in the outskirts of Wellington.The next day we drove to Whanganui(unfortunately we have lost the footage of this(Those micro sd cards are so small)).Then on to Stratford and the next day up Mount Taranaki to Dawsons Falls & Wilkies Pools    • New Zealand Scenic Drive,Stratford to Mt T...   .Then from Stratford we drove the "Forgotten World Highway" Part 1    • A Scenic Drive along The Forgotten World H...   . Part 2 going through the Moki Tunnel(known as the Hobbit Hole) 14km of this road is unsealed ie dirt road(lots of the hire car/van companies will not allow you to drive dirt roads) to Whakapapa at the base of Mount Ruapehu    • New Zealand Scenic Drive, Taumarunui to Wh...  .At Whakapapa we walked to the Taranaki Falls and rode the Sky Waka gondola up Mount Ruapehu.A short walk from the top of the Sky Waka is "The Wall" where they filmed some of the LOTR Two Towers sequences and you can look over to mount Ngauruhoe(Mt Doom) .Then via Taupo on to Napier where we walked the Art Deco trail around the town.Then on to Gisbourne the next day.Next to Ohope were we had a view of White Island(Whakaari) smoking in the distance from the campsite. Next we drove on to Waihi Beach on the Coromandel where we walked along the coast to Orokawa Bay. Then on to Hahei for two nights where we walked to Cathedral Cove(with quite a few other people).On again to Whitianga stopping overnight (we had a good curry in town) .Then Coromandel town the next day and north from there we stayed overnight at Amodeo Bay where we watched he sun go down    • Relaxing Beach Sunset Over Amodeo Bay,Ambi...   .Then back to Coromandel town and down the coast road staying just north of Thames for our last night of the trip(much sadness). And finally driving up to Auckland . Sections 00:00:00 Taumarunui 00:01:24 Leaving Taumarunui on SH4 00:06:20 Manunui 00:10:03 Piriaka 00:12:47 Mount Ngauruhoe in the distance 00:18:35 Owhango 00:34:38 The Tongariro National Park 00:47:24 Whakapapa Village 00:48:55 Our Route