🌲 NZ Road Trip - Day 2 Mount Ruapehu to Wellington via the Whitecliff Boulders

We were up relatively early the next morning and ready to get on the road. Next stop was Wellington via the amazing Whitecliff Boulders.

I thought it was only a short detour from the main road but turns out it was about 30mins driving down a basically one way gravel road. Thankfully there were no other cars on the road. Just a few curious sheep.

We parked up and started the hike which I didn't know much about. It was boiling hot and unbeknown to me it was straight down a cliff and along a river to the boulders. After making it down we then found the boulder walk which was really cool! They are known as cannon ball concretions that are made from mudstone.

They are all different sizes and some are split and others have tree roots growing around and into them. There is a sign at the start of the walk that explains how they formed and here is the brief version of the sign - millions of years ago rivers carried sediment from land that was eroding out to sea- shells and trees included.

The sea water contained dissolved chemicals which formed the 'cement' around the sediment- a calcium carbonate.

It was all good walking down but coming back up was insane!!! Basically a vertical walk back to the top in the searing hot sun. So it was back to the camper for a nice cold shower and lunch before setting off for Wellington.

The rest of the road to Wellington was pretty uneventful, just stifling hot - I didn't think NZ could get this warm but there you go! We arrived to Lyall Bay and were straight to the sea for a swim followed with a BBQ with some friends :) The sunset was magic and then we were off to our free camp spot for the night before catching the ferry to the South Island the following morning!