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Published: January 16th 2009
We camped for two nights in the
Tongariro National Park - halfway between Auckland and Wellington. We had planned to attempt the 'Tongariro Crossing' which is one of NZ's great day walks across the still active volcanic region, but having been on the road for more than two weeks and feeling the effects of the heatwave we didn't fancy getting up at 5am to start the walk, nor spending the whole day exposed to sun!
Instead we drove from our camp-site in
Whakapapa, where we'd pitched our tent with great views of the two major volcanos, first to
Whakapapa Village where the
Lord of the Rings cast and crew had spent quite some time during the filming of the 'Mordor' scenes. They had stayed at 'Chateau Tongariro', a famous hotel set at the foot of
Mount Ruapehu (2797m) - the mighty volcano.
Next, we drove up to
Iwikau Village, at an altitude of about 1650m which is the highest you can drive up the mountain and the start of the ski chair lifts. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the lower two lifts were open so we bought tickets and got another couple of hundred metres up the
First view of Ngauruhoe
Mount Doom doesn't look so scary from here...mountain. From there we walked up, through snow, ice and volcanic ash to
Pinnacle Ridge (2234m) for some stunning views of
Mount Ngauruhoe (2291m) which was used as "Mount Doom' in some films that are quite famous.
On the way back we stopped in at
Tawhai Falls.
And Alex, Oz and Bod - if you are reading this, have a look at the pictures carefully - WE GOT AN INVERSION!
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