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Published: January 16th 2006
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En Rotue to The Top
Surrounding location was that of Mount Doom in Lord Of The Rings Yes yes yes... since leaving a rather overcast and gloomy rotarua we sped south on route 1 to the lakeside town of taupo. Having passed through a couple of weeks previously we wern't really sure if there'd be much to discover but we've been extremely pleasantly suprised with the place. Mainly comprised of holidaying new zealanders intermingled with a large chunk iof the backpacker crowd.
The first night we were on the verge of mild panic when it seemed as if there would be no room at the inn - or even any of the campsites, but as has become the case on our travels the YHA prooved to be good and we again reaped the benefit of having a tent (all the rooms in town were full to the brim). After pitching up and surveying the hostel (a very good one it is too with wooden decking, large kitchens and nice hot showers) were took advantage of the various vouchers that had been thrust upon us on arival. Mostly we were able to enjoy good old bangers and mash, with HP brown sauce (the real deal), and a proper 0.75 litres of beer/ale/larger/brown drink (in some/most respects the kiwis
The Emerald Lakes
On the way down this is the reward have a lot to learn about beer). anyway the meal was great and we spent the evening spinnig yarns with an english guy who was enthusiastic about everything, and some irish girls (who enthused that i look better without a beard - i think i'm converted back to clean shaven days for a while, it at least allows me to retain some dignity while i eat soup again!).
After a good nights sleep the next day was spent hanging around taupo taking in the sights (the lake mostly - it's more of a base to go and do stuff than a happening town), reading under shady trees, sharing a lunch of apple based orange juice (no idea how that works either) and the driest cornish pasty ever known (the kiwis also have a lot to learn about those), seeing a glorious sunset over the Tongoriro, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe mountains, then spending the evening chatting to and real mad-chester lads on tour. I don't mind addmitting that i was wrong on my first impressions and they turned out to be excellent drinking/chatting/understanding bizarre dutch people comrades.
The next morning it was time for another adventure. Two days of mooching
around was enough and today was the day for the Tongoriro crossing, a 6-7 hour hike over what turned out to be pretty well dug out footpath, from the Mangatepopo village to the Ketetahi huts. In order to get the most out of the day and avoid being left stranded it did involve a 6am wake up call, but it was taken in good humour and helped with lashings of tea and scarambled eggs with shrooms on toast. The drive to the start was about an hour from our hostel. We eventually started around 8.30 with a lon flat hike trough an awful lot of volcanic igneous (i imagine) rock for company. As has become the case it didn't take much for us to turn the easy walking into an extended photo oppotunity.
Next came to crux of the hike a 2 hour (but halfed to a mere one) steep ascent of the Tongariro mountain passing up to the lip of the perfectly circular crater (just like in school text books) and across o bluff which took us to sniffing ditance of Mount Ngauruhoes peak. If you want to get an idea of what it looked like on the
way up it was the location for the mount doom climb in the Return of the King film, where frodo and sam clamber around on rocks and get possessed and all sorts of shinanigins. Anyway, the final climb to the summit was inded good larks as the cloud came in and the wind picked up. I was beginning to worry slightly about some of the less well prepared walkers around us untill i saw a fellow brit dancing past us without a care in the world wearing only trainers. After reaching said summit we fiannly got around reward for the aching legs, wind battered and sunburnt face, near misses falling off and picking our way through various nationalities of dawdellers. On the way down just like in a movie the cloud left, the sun shone and views of the aptly called emereld lakes were placed before us. Amazing pools turned torquoise by the abundant minerals and bumbling sulfer below. We luched on marmite sandwhichs next to these (claire nearly loosing her beloved famers sun hat to the pools evil grasp) and wished we had tea - but we had none so it was onward across the crater itself which is best described like mars. I took a good few mintues pretending to a spaceman - ace!. After crossing (hence the name of the walk) the crater of the extict volcano we walzed down the other side with considrable more speed down to a hut and finally down through a few kilometers of gentle downhill bog/woodland - very similar to derbyshire and the peak district i thought - except the occasional steaming sulfer pit and strangely hyper-active orange water in the streams. The final section i was forced to remember my fell running skills as the toiletr called and there were too many onlookers for comfort. We ended up finishing in a relatively speedy 6 hours, but i'm sure it could be done loads quicker if you were that way inclined.
We were hooked up again with Frank after a brief coach ride from the end on spent the journey 'home' singing songs and reviewing the days activity. Again there was a super view of the mounatians we had just climbed (although somewhat cloudier than the day before) and we tucked into a well earned beer and odd meal off philadelphia enfused tomatopasta. Actually very enjoyable.
As we sat our thoughts gradually began to turn to the skies as that was where the next adventure would be. We'd grooved the tongoriro and grooved well but tommorow a completely different challenge awaited - up there in the blue...
marc
yes yes yes - i've started reading again henace the sometimes random imagery used in the blog.
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