Tongariro

Tue January 29- Despite the bad Australian weather (half the country flooded, the other half on fire) our flights to New Zealand were fine and on-time. Surprisingly, in this digital age with e-tickets, the JetStar check-in-lady made us print our flight-itinerary (2 pages for 'just' 6 dollars) on paper! She insisted that the New Zealand immigration-officer would not trust our iPad PDF version. As expected, the kiwi-immigration-officer just let us in without asking for any itinerary. There are many flights between Australia and New Zealand leaving at all hours of the day, but somehow we ended up on the overnight flight from Melbourne to Auckland; depart at midnight, fly for 3.5 hours, 2 hour time-difference, arrive at 5:30am. Why did we book this flight?? Clearly our own fault, but we are not too happy with our friends at AirTreks either... Now we have 6 weeks to spend in New Zealand- so no more complaining!

Tongariro from the car

 

Pretty tired we picked up our Apex rental car (another Nissan Tiida - great!) and drove to the nearest cafe for some much needed caffeine. We did some groceries shopping for our first trek, bought a cheap pillow to make car-camping more comfortable and started our drive South to Whakapapa in the Tongariro National Park. We had to have quite a few coffee-breaks during the drive to make sure we did not fall asleep. The weather was superb and by mid afternoon we made it to the Whakapapa Holiday Park (third time for Maurits). We had an early dinner and afterwards went for a short walk with beautiful views of the volcanoes!

Nice sunset

Wed January 30- We slept like little babies! Well rested we spent the morning packing up and preparing for our 4 day Tongariro Northern Circuit trek. Tongariro National Park consists of 3 big volcanoes and our plan was to walk around Mount Ngauruhoe; a perfectly cone-shaped volcano also known as Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings. The volcanoes in the park are still very active and the northern section of the park is closed due to an eruption that took place last year.

Hmmmm...

It was yet again a superb day - clear and sunny! Since our first trekking-day was only 3 hours of walking, we spent the late morning driving around some of the viewpoints. We had lunch on top of "The Mounds" and around 2pm we left Whakapapa Village and set off on the trek. We walked on a very eroded trail towards Mount Doom (easier to spell and pronounce than Ngauruhoe). We had excellent views, but it was hot! To make life even more fun, about halfway Maurits slipped/tripped and ripped his pants! Let's see if we can find a tailor since long-legged-hiking-pants are a rarity... In summary: We were happy to be at the Mangetepopo hut! We setup our tent and made dinner on the deck outside the hut. A beautiful spot, great views and very comfortable temperature for sitting out! As we were making dinner, Maurits dropped a spoon which slipped through the cracks of the deck! For a moment we thought we had lost the spoon, but with a hiking-pole, long arms and some crawling we were able to avoid a second 'tragedy.'

Looking for a spoon...

Thu January 31- The sandy ground stayed very warm all night, like we were cooking in our tent. Not the best night's sleep! We woke to a very foggy morning. We could see about 25 meters, but during breakfast the fog disappeared and it turned out to be another beautiful day. Today we walked part of the 'Tongariro Crossing' - one of New Zealand's best day walks - and it was quite the conga-line! We walked up to the South Crater and decided to climb Mount Doom. There is no defined trail to the top of the volcano, but the hut-warden had explained how to get to the top. We left our backpacks at the bottom and climbed along unstable rocks and scree to the top. It was a tough climb, but the view was spectacular and it was nice to see the crater inside the volcano (we did not find a ring...) Going down the mountain was a lot faster than going up. We sort of slide-stepped down the scree. This was not without hazard though, Maurits fell pretty hard one time, and we had to be careful not to get hit by falling rocks triggered by other hikers.

Can you see The Ring down below??

View from Mount Doom

Back at the start of the climb we picked up our bags and headed to Red Crater for lunch. As we were having lunch, Maurits discovered that one of our (new Australian) water bottles had cracked! Not great to lose half a liter of water on a hot sunny day with no water on the trail... But luckily the volcano did not errupt :-) As we passed the beautiful Emerald Lakes, we left the herd of day-walkers behind us and walked the last leg through the moonscape to the Oturere hut/campsite. Oturere turned out to be in a very pretty spot with a beautiful view of the volcano! Best of all, there was an excellent swimming hole on top of a nearby waterfall! Making our way passed a naked German family, we found a great spot to cool off.

Above the Emerald Lakes

Fri February 1- After cooking yet another night in the tent (us not food), we got rewarded with an amazing sunrise lighting up Mount Doom. WOW! In the morning we walked through a lovely moonscape- it was not too hot yet and very enjoyable. Just before we got to the Waihohonu hut/campsite, we entered this beautiful but very out of place forest. Water brings life, and the river in this volcanic, barren landscape did as well. Around 10:30 we got to the brand new Waihohonu hut. Since it was only 5 more hours to the car, we thought about walking out. But the weather was superb, the view was excellent, we found a beautiful camp-spot along the river, so there was no reason to leave at all. After lunch we walked to the Ohinepango springs, but the water there was too cold for swimming. Instead we went for a swim next to our tent on our private river-beach! In general we like cooler weather better for hiking, but the hot weather is great for swimming... such a dilemma! We enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing at our picnic table and reading our books. We have to mention that for the last many months both of us are reading Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' series - a fantasy/science fiction/western story that consists of 7 books (about 4,000 pages). Will Roland and his ka-tet make it to the tower? We will find out soon!

Sunrise

Relaxing at camp

Sat February 2- After a good night's sleep camping among the trees instead of on the hot sand, we woke to our first cloudy morning! After breakfast much of the morning mist cleared and, as we set off on the last leg back to the car, it turned out to be very comfortable walking weather. We made a short side-trip to the Lower Tama Lake, had lunch at the Taranaki Falls and by 1pm we were back at the car. A great walk!

The steep volcano climb

Since we still had quite some daylight, we decided to drive a little way South. We found a campsite in Wanganui, right next to the Wanganui river. Later on our trip we actually heard very good things about the Whanganui River Journey - a 5 day 145 kilometer canoe trip. Something for a future trip perhaps... We setup our tent, washed of the volcanic dust and enjoyed a 'Stellar' beer and pizza.

Spotlight

Sun February 3- In the morning we drove to Liz and Alan in Wellington. We met Liz and Alan (together with their friends David and Barbara) on the Overland Track in Tasmania. Since we were passing through Wellington, Liz invited us to stay with them. Especially since they live 5 minutes from the ferry to the South Island, there was no reason for us to let this offer slip by. Around noon, after picking up some Dutch stroopwafels at the Foxton windmill, we arrived at their house. It was nice to see them again! We did some laundry, had a nice lunch and for the afternoon Liz and Alan took us to Zeelandia - an eco-restoration project where New Zealand's endangered birds and reptiles are protected from the European introduced pests like rats, possums, weasels, stoats and more. It is quite a large park and the ultimate goal is to make it look like the 'original' New Zealand (the 'old' Zealand) - including plants, trees and birds. It was very interesting to learn about the endemic and introduced species and get to know a little bit more about 'how it used to be.' Afterwards Liz and Alan took us on a drive around the Wellington coast-line. It was a beautiful day and the view of the city and surroundings from Mount Victoria was very nice! Barbara and David joined us for a delicious dinner home-cooked by Liz. A fun evening filled with travel tales!

Liz, Alan, Laura Beth and Maurits on Mount Victoria

 

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