The Tongariro Alpine Crossing

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A exhilerating day of hiking, pristine scenery, dizzying heights and fresh white snow that squeeked beneath our feet as we made our way across one of the worlds most renouned treks, doesn't come close to doing it justice. An early start of 5AM got us moving and after being kitted out in all our required hiking gear, we began what was to become the highlight of our new Zealand trip so far. Being the winter season, this trek could only be done as part if an organised group, and having previously being cancelled for 3 straight weeks as a result of awful weather conditions, we were blessed with the spectacular day we had. Incredible, the days following were cancelled too, so we had this one day window which we took with open arms.

At 8am we started our hike having already had some fantastic views on the bus journey of Mt. Ruapehu and Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom as its known in those Lord of the Ring films.) After an hour of relatively easy hiking, we made it to Soda Springs where we took a break before attempting our very steep 45 minute climb up the Devils Staircase (Believe us - the name suits). This was hard work but once at the top we were rewarded with some amazing views of the surrounding countryside and the now very close up, Mt. Doom. Not letting us stop for too long our guides pushed us onwards across the south crater and up our second steep climb of the day to the Red Crater (The highest point of our trek at 1886m above sea level). Just over the hump we stopped for lunch and looked down at the very long hike that lay before us. It was then that our guides decided that we could take the easy route. Sweet! So we treated the side of the mountain as a giant slide and slid all the way down the snow to the bottom (Some 200ft in total). Some of us went a little faster than others, namely Ste who was like a snowball gathering speed as he shot past me about half way down. It was great fun.

Anyway, we moved on again, right across the centre crater through the lovely metre deep fresh snow which was alot harder to trek across than it looked. It took us ages, being the expert mountaineers that we are! All around us we had the most stunning views. The weather was perfect all day, and although it was chilly at times, the sun made everything glisten and look so beautiful. After making it across the centre crater we had one last trek through the snow before we descended below the snow line. We were almost sad to leave this winter wonderland but not for long when our guide, Sarah, told us that we still had a three hour trek ahead of us.

We made it though, but those three hours were the longest of the whole trek... and at one point we thought it would never end. By 4pm though, we were back on the bus and heading back to Taupo, tired but very satisfied with our days adventure. We had completed the trek.. just the aches and pains to look forward to now.

The following day we moved onwards down to Wellington, it was a long drive but we did have some more great views, which helped. We spent only two nights in Wellington and we were very unlucky with the weather, payback for the beautiful weather we had doing the crossing. It quite literally didn't stop raining from the moment we drove into Wellington until we caught the ferry over to the South Island. We didn't do much here as a result, but we did go to the Te Papa Museum, the National Museum of New Zealand. A good thing to do on a rainy day. We spent a couple of hours looking around and then chilled out back at our campite, before leaving for the South Island.

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