We had a great time in national park. The cottage has everything you need. The kitchen is very well set up.
The environment was very peaceful.
We had planned a number of walks on mount ruapehu. However the weather was temperamental and we ended up housebound for a day as it poured with rain all day. We had a nice time at the cottage with the fire going toasting marshmallows, playing games and reading. Cosy winter holiday activities in the middle of summer. Later in the evening we went for a walk and explore around the national park town. We didn't see anyone else. It's a bit of a ghost town in the summer.
We managed to do a couple of walks on the day we arrived and the day we left. The silica rapids and the taranaki falls were great fairly short walks (around 6 or 7 kms which took us a couple of hours) The landscape was amazing.
We hope to return and do some more walks and we would definitely stay here again.