New Zealand in a Breath 3

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Ok, so we've just popped out of a cave, and we're off to the Town of Taupo, home to lake taupo, NZ biggest lake. It is also full of thermal springs here, there and everywhere. you'll be walking down the street, turn a corner, and theres a giant, steaming pit in the middle of the path. Smells of sulfur.

The main attraction of Taupo is it's proximity to the Tangoriro crossing. This was probably my highlight of NZ. This is where they shot much of the Mordor stuff for Lord of the Rings. In fact, it is home to MOUNT DOOM!

The Tangoriro crossing is about an 8-10 hour hike, and that's if you don't take the detour to climb mount doom. You are advised not to take the detour, because it won't allow you enough time to take your bus back into town. Of course, we took the detour. We met a couple of Welsh guys at the bottom, and we set off. It proved to be a very challenging climb. Mount Doom, as it turns out, is quite steep, and in some areas, sandy. The sand is tough because it is easy to lose your footing and slip. It also requires much more endurance. You know how tough it is to run in the sand? Try that uphill.

As you progress up the mountain, you come to a section of volcanic rocks. Volcanic rocks are very light, and easy to displace. Once one of those things gets rolling, they go all the way to the bottom, and pick up huge speed. They are also razor sharp. The slope at this point is so steep that you have to climb on your hands and knees. This is difficult when you don't have gloves and you're putting your icy hands on these sharp black and red rocks every step of the way. I still have many cuts on my hands that haven't healed.

It took us about two hours to get to the summit, but that's two hours of concerted effort - sweating, panting, bleeding - the whole bit. But it's all worth it when you make it to the top.

The first thing that strikes you is - wow - this really is a volcano. There is an enormous crater on the top of the mountain that probably goes down about 60-80 meters. It said on our pamphlet "If you fall in here, you won't get out." How right. The rock up here is quite red, a similar colour to that of rust.

Then you turn around and see the view. you've been too exhausted on the way up to really take a look around, so it hits you all at once. Enormous mountains on all sides, dotted with emerald lakes, thermal pools... White snow, volcanic rocks of black, red, green... really a sight to behold. Tough work to get there though - Adam is convinced it's in the top 5 hardest things he's ever done - and that's saying something (we've been in some pretty tough rugby games!).

If going up was difficult, coming down made it all worth it. You experienced mountaineers probably know coming down is more difficult than going up, but in this case, going down was huge fun. It was so steep that all you had to do was find a sandy patch, and then push off. You could literally ski down the slope, and really get some big speed! Also, we took some detours onto the icy patches, and did a bit of slolem, avoiding rocks popping up here and there. One of the Welsh guys we were with was hilarious - a huge guy, with an accent so thick you could barely understand a word. Anyway, he just shot down that hill at full speed, falling every few seconds, but hopping right back onto his feet and continuing. He could've really hurt himself if he'd been unlucky! but it was hilarious to watch him speeding ahead of us in a cloud of dust. We took about thirty minutes getting down and he took about fifteen.

We were totally spent when we reached the bottom, but still had an eight hour hike ahead of us. It was all transalpine too, not the easiest stuff. I won't go into detail, but we were speedwalking for hours on end, and got the bus right before it pulled out. The rest of the path was breathtaking as well, but you'll have to wait for photos. The plants that grew on these mountains were so beautiful though. They sort of reminded me of coral in taht they were were sort of... upsidedown bowl shaped? terrible description. They were a dull purple or yellow, and there were smooth, white rocks everywhere- wonderful colour combination.

Ok, so we made the bus and we were all safe! But I have to get off again, So I'll talk to you later!

Thomas

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