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Published: March 12th 2007
So here we are at Tongariro National Park for a few days. The main draw is the Tongariro Crossing, a 17km trek through volcanic mountains with views to die for and regarded as one of the best one day walks in NZ (so the literature says!). Of course, the last thing you need when doing something like this is rain - but somehow between the advice of the guy who ran our hostel and a crappy 5 day weather report (that is modified daily, and often changes from all day rain to clear and sunny - what is the point, even I could do that!) we turned up in the pouring rain with the promise that it was expected to clear a few hours later. As you can see from the photos, a few hours later at the highest point of the walk we were completely soaked and saw bugger all! We stopped near the Emerald Lakes (where are they?) to dry off at a hot steam vent, which promptly turned everyone's silver jewellery black! To be fair the weather did clear on the way down and the views were pretty stunning! We all felt much happier once we had dried
Tongariro Crossing...
...but we don't wanna get out of the bus!!!out...wet underwear is never much fun!! (Note to self...buy waterproof trousers!!)
Next day we lazed around a bit to let our legs recover - the suggestion that we hire bikes was quickly stamped on by Katie so we went for a short walk in the late afternoon/early evening along the Tupapakurua Falls Track to the Mt. Taranaki lookout to watch the sunset (ahhh...so romantic!!)
In order to try and atone for the debacle that was the Tongaririo Crossing, we decided to climb a mountain...Mt. Ruapehu to be precise! A days trek to wander around Crater lake at the summit, which is some 2700m up. Luckily Ruapehu is a popular ski resort in winter so we could cheat a bit and use the ski lifts to get to about 2300m and go from there. It was still a 2h trek to the crater ridge from there, but wow! We had perfect weather and could see 100's of km, even to some mountains that were on the coast of the island! The snow at the top only added to the amazing sight and to the fun...plenty of bottom sledging!! The views were breathtaking (it was the views not
the up hill hike ok?) and the photos really don't do it justice! If you ever visit NZ this is definately a must!
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dave & Carol
non-member comment
N/Z
New Zealand looks fantastic, thses are really amazing photos, and you both look so happy and are obviously enjoying yourselves, its nice to see you smiling and having fun. Definatly a place to dream of visiting, and tongano looks brill.