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Published: January 28th 2008
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After a sad goodbye to Sean at the airport in Brisbane, I arrived in New Zealand late in the evening on Wednesday. My first stop was Auckland, but I didn't do much there at all except for work out what I was going to do for the rest of the week I'm here. Yes, I know that's not very long at all, but it's better than nothing. Having got a vague plan worked out, I met up with an old friend, Tammy, who moved over here 3 1/2 years ago. We had a great evening catching up, and it was really good to see her again.
The next morning I was up bright and early to catch the bus to Taupo, for the first part of my plan. Taupo is one of those places where you go to not so much for the town but more for what you can do there - white water rafting, skydiving, sailing, powerboating...the list goes on. In my case, I was there to do the Tongariro Crossing. The Tongariro Crossing is billed as New Zealand's top one day hike, and it takes you through one of the most scenic and active volcanic areas of
The Devil's Staircase
Are we nearly there yet? the Tongariro National Park. As it happens, it also takes you past Mt Ngaurahoe, which was used as Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings.
Doing the walk involved a crack of dawn start (the bus came at 5:40am) as this is a loooong walk. It starts off easily enough - a relatively flat path across a quite barren landscape, which gets increasingly desolate the further along you go...more like Mordor, in fact. And then you reach the aptly named 'Devil's Staircase', at which point the track goes very steeply uphill and you're clambering over big boulders of volcanic rock. This kept on going for what felt like ages - every time I thought I'd reached the top, the path would just carry on. Finally, however, I got to the top. At this point you're at the base of Mt Doom...sorry, Mt Nguarahoe...and you have the option of climbing it. The guide warned that you should only attempt it if you found the Devil's Staircase easy. Seeing as I didn't, I gave it a miss. But I did see the odd mad, hardy soul set off along the path.
It was around about this point, as I was
giving my legs a little rest, that I got talking to a couple of guys, Patrick and Damian O'Connor, cousins doing the walk together. I ended up doing the rest of the walk with them, which I think definitely made it more enjoyable. Our legs were given a short respite at this point, to cross the thankfully flat southern crater. Now that we were effectively in the volcano at this point, the landscape was extremely barren...nothing but volcanic ash and rocks. It was just stunning - unlike anything I'd seen before. I was particularly taken with Mt Doom and kept taking loads of photos of it - each one from a
slightly different angle from before, in a
slightly different light.
There was one more climb to come, not quite as steep as the last one, before we reached effectively the middle point of the walk, at the red crater. We chose to do a side walk at this point, to summit of Mt Tongariro - which thankfully wasn't that much further up. The main reason for doing this was for the views across to Mt Doom...and lovely they were too.
After this, it was time to start
The final view
Looking back towards Mt Nguarahoe going back downhill - at last!! The path down the volcano is almost as steep as going up, and involved lots of sliding down scree and trying not to fall flat on your arse in the process. You go past the red crater, and a series of very inviting-looking lakes...all clear blue water. However, the smell of sulphur around reminds you that these aren't lakes you want to swim in!
It was only walking away from the volcano that you actually get a sense of where you've walked. Looking back, you can clearly see the side of the volcano and the red crater which was where it had obviously erupted from. The view was just stunning - the last photo op before the final descent. By this this point I was starting to get very tired - it being about 1pm by now, and we'd been walking since about 7:30am. The downhill felt like it took forever, without any of the beautiful scenery to distract you from your tired aching legs. There's a toilet about half way down, which was a chance for a verywelcome rest stop. But even so, there was still another hour and a half of walking after that! The final part of the walk goes through a forest, which covers you so completely that you can't see anything but the track immediately in front of you and behind you. We just kept thinking, please let the end be around the corner, please!! When we finally did reach the end, after nearly eight hours of walking, I was so happy. My legs were so tired I could hardly move...although they did manage to move enough later on that evening for a very much needed beer with Patrick and Damian!
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