Day 328 (Thu 31 May) - Whakappa Village

We had planned to get up really early but for some reason emerged at about 10.30am!

Our plan today is to walk to the lower Toma Lake.

Set off and headed past the falls walking in the opposite direction from the previous day. Looking back we could see Mount Ruapehu behind us.

Walked on a path that cut it's way up and down through grassland. Really felt like we had the place to our own as we passed about 2 other walkers on the way.
After about 3/4 hours we finally reached the lake.

The lake was quite beautiful, Mount Ngauruhoe forming an imposing backdrop. Apparently it had been formed from a previous volcanic eruption millenia ago.

We briefly thought of walking down to it but having looked at the sides of the crater and the floor of the crater itself it looked like it was formed of powder. Did not want to risk doing anything silly so settled down for a spot of lunch instead!

There was another lake a few hours away from us that we could have gone to but by this time Sarb had noticed that clouds had begun to form on the distant horizon. He decided that we should turn back.

By the time we had made it back to the waterfall the clouds had completely covered the base of the volcano and the places where we had been walking. Lucky call!

Got back to camp truly tired and had a filling pasta supper.