Ruapehu & Ngauruhoe

Depending how you count them there are about 8 volcanoes of interest in New Zealand. Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro are the group at the centre of the North Island, and though Tongariro is hard to get close to the others are easily viewable from the road. Usually these bad boys don't do very much, but occasionally they rumble a bit to remind us they're there - or they throw out some dust and bring normal life to a halt. You should never take volcanoes for granted.

Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe are both visible from the main ‘Desert Road’, but photographing them is another challenge – the weather up there can make it very difficult. Even the road is itself an astonishing place – it twists and turns with some alarming bends, and it’s quite usual to drive through sunshine, storms and back to sunshine in a single journey. But on a good day – wow!

Ruapehu

Of these two, Ruapehu is the bigger - but it lacks the elegant cone shape of its neighbour. And sometimes on the Desert Road the cloud just obscures everything...

Ngauruhoe

Ngauruhoe is smaller than Ruapehu but has a more perfect cone shape: it made a perfect Mount Doom, of course, in the Lord of the Rings films.