Tongariro Crossing

  Whakapapa Village, North Island, New Zealand
Sunday, January 4, 2009

I was especially excited for Tongariro National Park as Jaime told me, on the drive over, that it was the site for several Lord of the Rings scenes.    We were staying in a small ski village called Whakapapa, which was home to a very cool Chateau built in 1929 with a 9 hole golf course.  Tongariro national park is famous for encompassing three active Volcanoes, one of which (Mt. Ruapehu) erupted/exploded as recent as 1995.  Since it was raining heavily the afternoon we arrived, we didn't do much other then check out the visitor center and Chateau.  We were hoping we could do the Tongariro crossing the following day, a full day hike considered to be the best one day hike in NZ, but it's very dependent on weather.

The Chateau at Whahapapa Village

 

Sunrise over Mt. Ngauruhoe

    

Mt. Ruapehu

That night was freezing in our campervan and we had pretty much every piece of warm clothing on, but it was all worth it when we awoke to completely clear blue skies.  We felt very lucky as most people can wait for days without suitable weather for the hike.  We got an early start (7am) as the hike takes about 7 hours and we also had to drive to Wellington that evening, 5 hours away.  The morning was cold but dry and as we were hiking the sun rose behind Mt. Ngauruhoe, an almost perfectly cone shaped volcano used in the filming of Lord of the Rings as Morodor's Mt. Doom.  We snaked our way up several steep switch backs and came to South Crater, which makes you feel like you're walking on the moon.  Next we hiked further up Mt. Tongariro with a great view of Red Crater to our left, this is where the infamous 1954 eruption occurred. 

Morgan and Ngauruhoe

The Red Crater

We next made our way down the back side of Mt. Tongariro to the Emerald Lakes, which get their color from the abundant sulfur minerals.  Before the final accent, we passed through North Crater which was very eerie and desolate.   We had one more accent before our final journey down Ketetahi springs.  On the way down we had an amazing view of Lake Taupo and the surrounding mountain ranges.  Everything was an incredible green color.  We also passed several hot springs, considered to be sacred Maori grounds, and even some significant steam arising from the mountainside.  When we finally made it down, we took the shuttle back to our campervan and began the drive to Wellington.  The drive was actually very scenic and went by fairly quickly.  Jaime and I were both surprised by how much parts of NZ resembles Idaho and coastal Washington, and sometimes I would forget I was even driving in NZ.  We had been scheduled to take the 3am fairy to the South Island town of Picton, but when we arrived in Wellington, they had room on the 9pm fairy so off we were to the South Island.

Emerald Lake

View of Lake Taupo