Nick’s world tour

Sorry for the Lord of the Rings names, but believe me they are easier to remember than the real ones! Based in the imaginatively named National Park village, I spent three days doing the Tongariro Northern Circuit in New Zealands first national park.

The Tongariro Crossing is the best day walk in NZ apparently, or was it the world? This forms a chunk of the circuit, and is very popular. On a busy weekend in mid summer, 1500 people attempt it.

This gives the first bit of the trail from Mangetopopo Hut the feeling of a motorway, crossing some old lava flows in a valleyand up a steep climb to the saddle.

Here most people carry on , but if you fancy it there’s a tough scramble up Mt Doom (ok, really called Ngauruhoe) which is still active.

It takes ninety minutes to the top, mostly 3 steps up, 1 back, onthe loose rubble and pummice. This is the most recongisable thing from that film, though they have removed the all-seeing-eye-thing from the top. The crater is spectacular, though disappointing in that it doesn’t contain bubbling lava. The trip down takes ten minutes- inventing a new extreme sport called pummice surfing. If they had a volcano in Queenstown you’d pay N$200 for a cable car to the top and a slide down…

The path then drops across the walls of Mordor into the Red Crater and then up the other side with views across the red dike and down to the brilliantly coloured Emerald Lakes. The next crater is filled with a lava flow, visible from the next crater rim and Blue Lake.

There are lots of eggy smelling vents around here, and the rocks are stained an interesting colour from all the gases and minerals. In the next valley is Ketatahi Hut where I spent the night. When I arrived there were just three of us, I walked to some hot springs and an hour later 14 Estonians (who proceded to get very drunk) had arrived.

Next day I backtracked to Emerald Lakes and then headed across to the Otuere Valley.

This is sand filled, with lava flows and jagged clumps of lava rock and in the sun looked impressive. The rest of the day is cloudy, and much of it is spent crossing a desolate desert landscape with views of Ruapehu- the most recent volcano to erupt in the late 90s. A big lake is about to collapse with a very big predicted mud flow. Although “about to” has been predicted for quite some time. It rains quite heavily while everyone crosses through a beech valley and to Waihohonu Hut, tonights stop. Luckily there’s only a few people tonight, so no-one had to sleep on the floor. The Maori hut warden gives an impromptu traditional welcome and finishes with a haka. The only thing that slightly detracts from his performance is his pink flip-flops…

The final day is hot and sunny, and the long walk skirts the foothills between both volcanoes, passing some explosion craters, and finally turning back to Whakapapa village and the end of the trail.

If anything, the last two days were more visually impressive than the main walk everyone does, because you got better views of the volcanoes. And as I carried all my stuff for 3 days, I feel I redeemed myself after the last “cheating” walk!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.