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Published: January 30th 2013
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Mount Doom at sun rise We left Taupo in the early morning and headed to Waitomo Caves. We opted for a walking tour so we could see the glow worms. Given we were at the Jenolan caves in the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago, we are now pretty "caved out", but the silky glow worm threads and lighting they produced were cool to see, even if impossible to catch on camera.
After a stop at the last major town to stock up on food (there is very little out there), we headed towards the Tongariro National Park. This park is best known for being one of New Zealand's most spectacular, with active volcanoes, including "Mount Doom" (Mt Ngauruhoe) from the Lord of the Rings films. It is also the starting point for what is billed as the best one-day trek in the country, The Tongariro Alpine Crossing, and is the reason we stopped off there.
One of the volcanoes had recently erupted and was still producing steam (it also rumbled a few times while we were on the crossing), so the second part of the trail was unfortunately closed, and so you had to walk just over half way and then walk back.
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Hazel walks into the basin surrounded by volcanoes On arrival, we had a briefing about the trek as it's pretty hardcore for tame tourists like us, with steep slopes where you have to scramble up loose rocks on the side of a mountain. We prepared ourselves for all weather conditions, as it can be very changable up there and you are also reminded of this by numerous signs along the way. The other noteable signs on the trail were the ones telling you when you entered the "flying rock zone" and what to do when an eruption occurs (apart from running away and then changing your underwear!).
We took a bus from our hostel to the start of the track at 7:15 the next morning and set off on the 8 hour walk. The landscape started off as bush-land for the half an hour and then you walk through the lava fields where there are huge rock formations piled up all around. After a warning sign suggesting you consider turning back if not properly prepared, you climb up for about 45 minutes and are greeted with a lunar-like landscape where nothing grows on the flat orangey coloured ground. After another hour or so, you start scrambling up
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This is the furthest we can go... the side of the mountain on a narrow track to get to the volcano peaks and then navigate the mountain tops alongside the craters.
The mountains are generally fairly cloudy and are renowned for being pretty rainy too - clouds get stuck between the volcanoes and as you climb, you end up above them. It was pretty cool in the morning and as you ascend, the air temperature drops quite a bit; once you're up top amongst the craters you need to keep moving or wrap up.
From the top you can see the "red crater" and across to the emerald lakes beside the active volcanoes. Unfortunalty, we couldn't actually see the currently erupting one, but could see (and smell) the steam coming off it - parts of the rock you could walk on were steaming.
We made pretty good time getting up to the top, so Mark opted for a detour to another peak, about 3km away (whilst Hazel relaxed in the sunshine). The views from the top were incredible and the landscape was like nothing I (Mark) have seen before. I'm not sure the photos do it justice and some of them appear to be a
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Mount Doom from the other peak, along the mountain ridge strange angles, but I can promise that the side of the mountain was actually that steep (yes Christine, it was that steep!). There was the option to scale Mount Doom, but apparently it is all scree, so three steps up, one back, and takes about 3 hours. This seemed a pretty exhausting option when we were already 6 hours in, so we though we'd save that for another time...
After completing the walk, we caught a bus back to the hostel and had showers (and Mark had a cheeky nap) before heading to the village bar for a celebratory drink. The next day was a rest day for Hazel's feet and Mark's Knee, as we are old people now (although Hazel was pretty pleased about getting ID'ed in the village bar), and then it was back onto the Magic bus for the trip on to Wellington.
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