Turangi - a week under Mt. Doom!

IWe finally left the coast and headed inland, to the town of Turangi, at the southern end of Lake Taupo. We left the ocean and found warmer waters to swim in! Lake Taupo is a vast, sparkling sea of clear blue and since it is off season, we find ourselves swimming alone in the warmest water we've encountered so far, just us and a few black swans in the distance. We are staying in a charming little cabin near the Tongariro river, a world renowned fly fishing destination.
Liam and I mountain biked the Tongariro River Trail, crossing a few suspension bridges and spotting a few fly fishermen along the way, while Nigel taught Rory how to fly fish for his first time, further downstream.
The boys had been excited about seeing Mt. Ngauruhoe, otherwise known as Mt. Doom, so we did two great hikes in the Tongariro National Park to get as close as we could to the perfect dome of 'Lord of the Rings' fame. The first hike took us 5 hours round trip to the upper and lower Tama lakes, at Doom's southern base. The lakes were a spectacular emerald green and the ridge where we had our lunch was stunning - in front of us was the upper lake with Mt.Ngauruhoe behind it, and behind us, the lower lake and Mt. Ruapehu! On our way back we stopped to cool our feet off at the base of the 20 meter Taranaki Falls and followed the river back to the Chateau Tongariro where our hike began.
The next hike in Tongariro started at the Whakapapa ski village where we took 2 chairlifts up to 2020m, giving us a head start to the 2797m summit of Mt. Ruapehu. This hike took almost as long and the uphill scramble over rocks and boulders and up scree fields proved quite challenging! Rory made it within 10 minutes of the craters edge, saying he had had enough of the climb, the rest of us climbed the last few hundred feet and were rewarded with incredible views. Being a beautiful clear day, we could see Mt. Ngauruhoe, Tongariro and all the way to Lake Taupo as well as Mt. Taranaki in the west, as well as the view into Ruapehu's crater and the pale blue crater lake! The journey back to the chairlift took almost no time, glissading on snow fields and jumping down the sandy, scree areas, to a well deserved picnic lunch.