Lord of the Rings land. Frodo for a day

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After Rotorua I moved south to Taupo. I originally viewed Taupo as a base for doing the Tongariro crossing. However it turns out that Taupo is a great place. I never really read up on Taupo so maybe it was a great place in the eyes on everyone else already, I just don’t know. The hostel I was staying at (Rainbow Lodge) was a great place too. I couldn’t really tell you why it just was/is. YHA take note

Like I said though before discovering Taupo to be a great place, I originally went there to do the Tongariro crossing. The Tongariro crossing is roughly 1hr30mins drive from Taupo. For the previous week the crossing has been closed because the weather had been poor/abysmal. I was in luck though as the weather had cleared up somewhat. Cleared up to the extent that it was no longer raining or snowing the 60km gusts did remain though.

The actual walk is 19km in total i think. It is relatively easy apart from the 1st ascent known as hells stair case for obvious reasons. The only problem is that there is no real footpath, just poles hammered into the ground that you are supposed to follow. I found myself literally walking on/over boulders and playing stepping stones. Oh how I yearned for a quality national trust path. Once you get to the top of MT Tongariro (1967m) the views are really impressive. The wind that I felt at the top was as strong as had ever felt and it was literally blowing me along. Once I got to the peak I literally had to crawl as the wind seemed like it would blow me off the edge. All in all not a bad walk though.

I don’t know if it has been on the news back home but whilst I was doing the walk one of natural dams on Mt Ruapehu collapsed. The pictures on the news look pretty spectacular. This was a bit freaky as Mt Ruapehu is only 40km away from where I was doing the walk. Just glad I wasn’t in the way. check this link out ,http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/3997152a6004.html

On that night at the hostel in Taupo I met some top people. The legend of Rainbow lodge grows!!!! First was a kind of Tim nice but dim character. That’s probably unfair but it was the 1st thing that came to mind. Turns out he lived in Ghana but went to public school in England. Anyhow he was entertaining all with stories of just generally been a bit of a reprobate. He shall probably go far in life though. He was telling me about game hunting in Ghana which has pretty much been reduced to shooting dogs as everything else has been shot and eaten. I can’t imagine a country without cats and what about the rats??? The other bloke was a possum trapper called Jethro, Jethro can you believe it. The only other Jethro I have ever heard of was Jethro Tull and he invented a plough or see drill about 300 years ago. Anyhow he was telling me about the various ways of killing possums, turns out there are quite a few. These range from barbaric to humane. This bloke was totally clued up on nature on had some cracking stories. I reckon he could be NZ’s equivalent of Ray Mears. Jethro was up in Taupo because he was involved in some new initiative whereby they were dropping poison out of helicopters. This didn’t sound terribly innovative to me. One of the problems though was that the poison was so poisonous that it killed pretty much everything else as well. Sounds like some kind of Agent Orange escapade in Vietnam circa 67 gone wrong. This isn’t such a bad thing though as the NZ government seems to regard pretty much every wild animal as a pest apart from the beloved Kiwi.

Jethro was telling me that you can pick up possum pies in the south island (goes straight on the itinerary) I can’t imagine what they taste like? Probably on safe ground if I say chicken

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Photos

Tongariro crossing
yummmyy

Tongariro crossing
view from hells staircase

Tongariro crossing
the summit

Tongariro crossing
one of the emerald lakes at the summit

Tongariro crossing
the summit from a distance or mars

Tongariro crossing
Desolate

Tongariro crossing
me on the way down

Tongariro crossing
the mountain hut

Tongariro crossing
me at the moutain hut

Tongariro crossing
bit of activity on the stream

Comments

[Jay]

alrite mate
Alright mate hope your havving a good one, you seem to be! better than the delights of Rusholme anyway im sure! Keep yourself nice

[Grunds]

where's Gollum?
Some of that scenery looks spectacular mate. I'd love to walk around New Zealand with a big stick pretending to be Gandalf but instead I'm stuck in Carlisle planning lessons (a-whoo, still it's nearly easter) Jethro Tull: seed drill 1701 (Gcse history). The only other one I know was a character on Micro Machines...

[Buckers]

jethro
Anyone remember Tim Alston? (I try to forget) his middle name was Jethro... The photos look amazing, good to see you've managed to get a bit of hiking in too. Its no Whitbarrow Scar though! Got some cracking gigs lined up in your absence, it will feel wrong without you. Going to Muse at Wembley stadium and Reading Festival! Keep up the happy travelling.

[Math McC]

get it right bucks!
I think it was actually Tim's first name. Some boys get all the luck ay. I wish I was named after my seed drill-inventing hero :(.