A change is as good as a holiday, so they say…and I leapt at the chance to get out of the office to check on internet connections in the huts on the Northern Circuit.

My day didn’t get off to the smoothest of starts…

Naughty Meindls

…my trusty Meindls tossing a lace…already running a tad late, I grabbed…

Good Meindls

…my spare never-before worn pair…the beauty of Meindls being that you really can wear them right out of the box…

Looking east towards Red Crater, Mount Ngauruhoe on the right

It doesn’t look like the cheeriest of days but it was actually a great day for walking, a nice westerly to take the edge off and keep us cool, and just enough sun to be pleasant without being scorching…

First stop was Mangatepopo, only about twenty minutes walk in from the car park…a nice cuppa with the ranger there…

…before some comparative performance testing on laptops, tablets and phones…

Lured by the promise of pikelets for smoko, we headed off for the other side of Mount Ngauruhoe and Waihohonu Hut…Parking up at the Waihohonu Road End park we made good time into the hut. The surface is mostly sandy, firm enough to walk on but not so compacted as to be uncomfortable…

While we did our techo-geeky stuff…

…the chef started on smoko…

Who says you can’t have the comforts of home in a back country hut..?

As you can guess from the pix, Waihohonu is quite new and very comfortable…

Seeing the cloud spilling over Ngauruhoe, we decided on a more cracking pace back to the park, completing the last klick or so at an enjoyable jog…

I’m regretting not filling the spa a couple of weeks ago as a nice soak would go down pretty well at the moment…I suspect that I may be a little stiff in the morning…a most excellent day and one I hope to repeat next week as Oturere still needs testing….