Rainy Days
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2006
1
43
154
Trip End
May 27, 2008
National Park, New Zealand
Sunday, November 26, 2006
We got off the bus for a quick walk then arrived at National Park to stay at 'The Park', a new hostel (that wasn't quite finished....). The staff were really helpful though and gave me info about a mountain bike hire place at another hostel, as there were some good trails there which are worth doing if I can't do the walk. I walked over to the bike hire place at Howard's Lodge to check out the bikes and he told me he had some other guys going the next day that I could tag along with. However he also mentioned the weather may be OK to do the Tongariro crossing and he could take me to do that. I decided to keep my options open and call him in the morning regarding the weather and do the walk if possible then bike the following day
01 My view of the mountains
. I also decided to book the following night at his hostel as it was more what I wanted.That evening I was pretty bored as it just rained so hard - another hostel had an indoor climbing wall but nobody off this supposed bus for active backpackers was into climbing (or mountain biking, or long hikes for that matter) I didn't have a partner.
Today the forecast was good so I got the shuttle to the start of the Tongariro crossing and set off at a speedy pace as I wanted to have time to do at least one summit (Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings). Unfortunately the weather wasn't so good at that time in the morning and I couldn't even the see the mountains but I still tried to go to the top. After 5 mins I lost the trail markers so turned back, plus it was pretty windy and I was on my own.
I got up to the highest point and the weather was like Patagonia - gale force freezing winds and there were icicles on the ground from it. I was just about to head down when a gust blew me and I lost control and took a tumble which was pretty painful. Someone helped me up but my back and bum were really sore but I decided to go on as I wasn't getting picked up until the end and there was a warden's hut towards the end of the trail
02 The mist clearing
. I saw a couple of sulphur lakes just as the weather started to clear and made it to the hut a couple of hours later. The warden was from the UK and let me sit in his sleeping area so I could be more comfortable. He was volunteering for the Department of Conservation so he could get to know the mountains more but I don't know how he managed to be up there 5 days of the week as it was so isolated and freezing (plus his heater was bust). Unfortunatly he only had his first aid at work so couldn't really help me but did give me coffee and biscuits. I waited there for a couple of hours as I had time to kill before the bus would pick me up at the end (and there was nowhere inside to sit there) and got on my way.
Unfortunately there is no Doctor in National Park and it seemed crazy to go by ambulance to the hospital 40kms away so we called them and they suggested it was muscle damage and bruising, possibly a cracked rib and to rest, take ibuprofen and get in a hot tub. Luckily Howard's Lodge has an enclosed tub you can book out for yourself so that was great but I was in a lot of pain and couldn't do much. In the kitchen I chatted to some guys and it turned out they were the ones I could have gone mountain biking with. They'd had a great day so looks like I'd made the wrong choice doing the walk! They were Kiwis (one Austrian) from Wellington which apparently has great biking also. They invited me to the local pub as the RFL NZ vs Oz match was on. Unfortunatly NZ lost but it was nice to chat to some local people and experience something different. One of the guys was learning Spanish so it was good for me to try and remember what I had learnt in S.A.
