Today I continued my journey south through New Zealand boarding the Magic Bus and leaving Taupo. 

The bus take the same road as the one that I had taken the day before to tackle the Tongariro crossing.  This time Mount Tongariro had a fresh covering of snow.  Clearly today it would not be possible to tackle tackle it without alpine climbing equipment.  Just two days ago people were able to climb both Mounts Tongariro and Ngauruhoe.

Having arrived in Wellington it is clear that is really the windy city.  Having arrived late in the afternoon it was a rush getting to the New Zealand National Museum, Te Papa and having a decent look round.  I guess I only manged to see a quarter of the exhibitions that were on and some of those I was only skimming through due to lack of time but it certainly is an impressive place giving both physical, natural and cultural histories of New Zealand.  I was particulally impressed by the outdoor exhbition of the different fauna through the island.