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Published: December 15th 2006
Tongariro Crossing
Mt Doom (easier to spell than its real name!)We drove to Taupo in the dark so we could only make out the shadows of the landscape which seemed to be pretty impressive. We thought it was raining again... but the splatting on the windscreen wasn’t rain at all, just a hell of a lot of flies and moths… euwwwwww!
We got our first look at Taupo the next day. It’s a bustling, touristy place on the north east edge of Lake Taupo. The lake occupies a crater formed by one of the biggest volcanic explosions ever about 26,500 years ago… not quite so big was a further Taupo explosion in AD 181, the effects of which were noted as far away as China and Rome!
We were now in the huge swathe of volcanic territory that stretches diagonally across the North Island where the Indo-Australian and Pacific plates meet. Taupo is still volcanically active. It has nearby geothermal areas and across the lake from Taupo stand the volcanic peaks which make up Tongariro National Park.
The weather - as usual - was highly variable. We spent the very wet bits drinking coffee in a nice little café with scrumptious deli grub. When it was
Ho ho ho!
I bet this picture hasn't been taken at the Craters of the Moon area before... merely drizzling we drove a little way out of Taupo to the impressive Huka Falls and then to Craters of the Moon (a relatively new geothermal area which spring up in the 50s when a power station lowered underground water levels). We walked around craters and bubbling mud pools and through clouds of rotten-egg smelling steam…but after you’ve cracked all the fart jokes you can think of it gets a little monotonous.
We were really just killing time until the weather improved so Rod could jump out of a plane, or - more precisely - be strapped to another bloke who would jump out of a plane. It had actually been my bright idea to do a sky-dive (about 18 months ago when we’d been planning out trip), but the closer we got to NZ the more I wussed out. Rod, however, was determined to do it and when the weather finally cleared the skydive company arranged to pick him up (in a stretched limo with the registration plate ‘JUMPUS’ :o) and I waved him goodbye. As it turns out I could have gone along to watch, but we didn’t realise that at the time.
I spent the
Pre-sky dive
Feeling rather nervous! next few hours listening to the sound of planes overhead and wondering which one Rod was on. He finally returned a little later than expected, clutching a DVD of his jump and looking a bit shell-shocked. The DVD is fantastic, but I’m sure he’ll bore you all with it in due course….he said it was “good, but terrifying”!
Tongariro National Park Tongariro National Park and the small resort town at its centre (called National Park, no really!) is just a short drive from Taupo. It’s NZ’s oldest national park as well as a world heritage site.
In winter, people come here to ski at Whakapapa (pronounced ‘Fa-ka-pa-pa’) but in summer the big draw is the ‘Northern Circuit’ Great Walk and the shorter ‘Tongariro Crossing’ which packs in many of the highlights of the Northern Circuit and is often described as NZ’s best day walk.
We took one of the daily shuttle buses to the start of the Tongariro Crossing trail and began the walk - with about 50 other people from our hostel plus a few other bus-loads - at 8am. After an hour’s walk down the Mangatepopo valley we got a great view of the
Coming in to land...
The nice floaty bit before nice solid ground conical Mount Ngauruhoe (which became Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings) thanks to the clear warm weather. Then, there was a painful scramble up a steep hill to the South Crater of Mount Tongariro, where the wind whipped the dust around us.
For the next few hours we were surrounded by amazing, alien landscapes (and some whiffy sulphur gases) as we walked up the gravely ridge of Mount Tongariro and looked in to the still-active Red Crater and down to the beautiful emerald lakes on the other side of the ridge. After a decidedly sketchy descent down to the lakes we had a brief lunch stop and chatted to a Geordie couple that we met all those weeks ago in Akaroa (who are also renting an Escape van). We pushed on across a plain before the last, short uphill part of the walk from where we could see all three mountains (Ngauruhoe, Tongariro and Ruapehu). With the exception of a hill-side geothermal area, the last few hours of the walk were pretty bland but even so, the highlights of the walk made up for that.
Waitomo Caves The following day we drove a few hours further
Relief!!!
No dodgy comments about this pic, thank you! north and arrived at Waitomo, home of the glow worm caves. I was experiencing the usual trepidation when faced with anything more risky or energetic than watching TV, but our ‘Rap, Raft ‘n’ Rock’ adventure in the Waitomo caves turned out to be one of the best things we’ve done in NZ.
The trip is a great way to see glow worms or, as our poetic guide knows them: “maggots that burn their own sh*t to make light”…he tells us that ‘glow worms’ works better for marketing purposes.
Two Israelis and a married couple from LA made up the other 4 of our 6 person group and after introductions and a bit of political back-slapping amongst the Israelis and Americans (until I requested we keep the day strictly non-political), we put on our silly outfits and white wellies and had a bit of dry-run abseiling practice… i.e. 2 minutes of practice followed immediately by a 27 metre abseil in to the abyss! A bit scary it was too, that first step in to thin air, but of course the guide was doing most of the work for us.
Once we’d all made it safely in to the
bottom we had a minute to appreciate the pretty sun rays filtering through to the lush green walls of the cave, before we grabbed a tube and began floating our way along the subterranean river under constellations of glow worms. It was like gazing up at the starriest night ever, and once we’d had a while to ooh and ahh, we went over a few mini-rapids to keep things interesting, followed by a little taster of caving (squeezing through a little tunnel before edging our way around the cave walls and wading though the fast-running water). The only way out that didn’t require a high level of skill was the way we’d got in, so one-by-one we climbed out of the cave: a pretty manageable stepped climb with a static rope for safety. All in all, a very cool morning.
Rotorua Rotorua is the biggest tourist destination in the North Island. It’s surrounded by lots of geothermal areas and there are various places to experience some traditional maori culture nearby.
As a town, Roturua is nothing special and you could spend a fortune visiting tourist attractions, so we decided to go to just one of the geothermal
Tongariro Crossing
Red Crater (with Mt Ngauruhoe in the background) areas: ‘Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland’. Admission cost a hefty $25 each and since we’d already seen some muddy smelly craters, the highlights were the so-called Artist’s Palette and Champagne pools that are vividly coloured by the various gases and minerals seeping up from the earth below.
To be honest, though, we wish we’d saved our money and stuck with the free geothermal pools at Kuirau Park (just around the corner from the swings and slides!!)….there was no admission fee there, but Rod made himself feel sick by spending too long in the foul-smelling steam while he took photos!
The highlight of Rotorua was actually the mountain biking - for Rod of course!
Raglan We were more than happy to leave smelly Rotorua behind as we headed to the west coast and the international surfing mecca of mellow little Raglan. We read somewhere that Jack Johnson has a house here (which figures, since he’s pretty much been the soundtrack to our year of travels). Raglan’s Manu Bay has the World’s longest left-hand break and the surfers were out in force.
We didn’t do a whole lot in Raglan, and everyone else seemed to have the same idea.
Tongariro Crossing
View from the Red Crater After a day of unrelenting rain the sun came out and Raglan’s cafes were packed out with a distinctly yuppie set.
Bikers’ corner After the exhilaration and terror of falling out of a plane (it still makes me weak at the knees when I see that bit on the DVD - and the DVD also demonstrates how a few G’s can make anyone resemble a ‘League of Gentlemen’ character!) I got out on the more mellow activity of mountain biking at the Craters of the Moon area just outside of Taupo. The trails don’t pass over the geothermal areas, but you get close enough to see the steam rising and get the odd whiff of rotten eggs…. The trails themselves were pretty decent and extensive - the best of the trails still had the Jamis roping up from a recent 12 hour race… that would have been a very nice course indeed. As seems quite usual, some of the harder grade tracks were overgrown and rutted, but the others were fast winding roller coaster trails and good fun.
I had intended to do the “42nd Traverse” in the Tongariro Forest- a ride that is rated as one
Emerald Lakes
Tongariro Crossing of the best in NZ…. But a combination of bad weather, fatigue and lack of belief that a mainly downhill logging track can possibly make a great (or even good) ride led me to not bother. So we went to Waitomo and found a bar showing the Ashes cricket test and settled down for the long haul (hmmm…. With hindsight that was a bad investment of time!)
Rotorua was the next biking spot. The MTB world championships were held here back in August and, although the world champs courses were only temporary affairs, there is a vast network of trails at the nearby Whakarewarewa Forest (that name is actually an abbreviation of its full name!) I did two rides here, about 4 hours each, and still didn’t cover all the trails… it was extensive and nearly all top notch singletrack - the best I’ve ridden other than in Canada. Another national downhill track provided some extra adrenalin, and many of the trails even encouraged a ground addict like me to get (a little bit) in the air…
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