Awesome Australian Adventure A mechanical solution to an electrical problem.

In the shadow of Mt Doom

Yesterday we picked up two cars in Wellington, and today we arrived at a camp ground near the base of the volcano used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Before I talk about that, however, I must talk about the cars.

We wanted to get two manual transmission cars. This was unsuccessful because the car rental place had extremely limited stock. What they did have was a Nissan Sunny. The only place I have ever heard about a Nissan Sunny before is the show Top Gear. This is how Nissan Sunnys are treated on Top Gear:

Nissan Sunny

The other car is a Daihatsu, which I believe is some kind of Toyota, and is actually kind of nice, considering it has a 1.3 liter engine. I'm pretty sure cars with engines that small are considered unpatriotic in the US.

Anyway, the drive was exciting, and we've now seen some small fraction of the sheep in New Zealand. Around two thirds of the way through we could see Mount Ruapehu, which is (according to Wikipedia) one of the mountains filmed for Lord of the Rings, but (according to Nathan) not the real one. At this point we stopped to look at it and so Matt could graze.

The Sunny isn't on fire... yet

Later, we were far enough around Mount Ruapehu that we could see Mount Ngauruhoe, which is apparently the real Mount Doom.

It didn't look as scary as I was worried it might

Better photos to follow tomorrow when we actually climb it! (Assuming Sauron doesn't find us)

P.S. I don't think I've ever actually seen the third Lord of the Rings, and I'm pretty sure that's the one that Mount Doom appears in, so any references I make come from wikipedia.

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