East coast, blue ducks lodge, national park

The first day after Rotorua we set off to Gisborne. On the way we had a very nice view of New Zealand and probably we passed some locations where lord of the rings is filmed. We walked to a nice bridge with a beautiful view of a river that could have been Alduin. After all this driving however we went to our hostel, named Rayvon (named after the two owners). It is a hostel purposely built for stray but is now known for its relax attitude to backpackers. It actually is just a surfshack with a cool hippie vibe. A lot of French people were there and after a BBQ we were invited to a beach party. It was nice for a while however I was invited into a hot tub which was amazing.
The next day we went for a short drive through Gisborne but went back to the hostel to enjoy the sea some more. After that I chilled out in a hammock under a grape tree with some French music (the soundtrack of Amelie to be exact). All these factors put together made my day a perfect hippie relax day and could stay there for many more hours, however we had to leave and head towards our next hostel.
The next day we went to Tokomaru bay where we could see the first sunrise of New Zealand. Nico and I had the best view as we were camping at one of the highest hills around us. The sunrise was quite nice, especially knowing it was the first sunrise of the 17th of December, however I'd seen better at the tower hill reserve on the great ocean road.
We then drove to Maraehako bay, where two Scandinavian girls (Emelie and Nicolina) went for a walk to a waterfall, and went swimming in the cold water there as well. It was quite refreshing and made the day worthwhile.

In the next two days we went via Taupo to blue ducks lodge, it's a lodge in the middle of bombfuck nowhere and it's a big farm trying to increase the blue duck population on their land. We went for a easy walk as we had to spare our energy for the to Tongariro alpine crossing the next day. The waterfall was quite nice, but yet another one seen so far.
The Tongariro crossing was spectacular. At first there was an awful lot of mist and we couldn't see further then 30 m ahead, but later it cleared up just enough to have some amazing views. Unfortunately mt. Doom (from Lord of the Rings) was to shrouded in clouds. We did see the Earths ... Ahum (see picture and see for yourself) and some amazing views of Mordor, as Tongariro national park is the place where Mordor is filmed. The walk is quite exhausting as it is about 18-19 km and you have to climb a lot to reach the nice places.
Side note: I was doing the Tongariro crossing on the 21st of December 2012, and it is an area full of volcanos of which one erupted just a couple of weeks earlier and closed part of the track.
It was a day worth remembering.