Yesterday we drove from Wellington to Rotorua. Long drive, but my GI was (mostly) cooperating. Among other things, we stopped in Bulls, NZ , where we saw this mural: We also drove past Tongariro , which played the part of Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies: And we visited the mud pools at Waiotapu : Unfortunately for me, last night was a very difficult pass with my lower GI being painfully and dreadfully uncooperative. I feel pretty crummy today, though things are somewhat settled down. On the plus side, the_child continues to have a great time. Photos © 2013, Joseph E. Lake, Jr. and B. Lake This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. and B. Lake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License .