The Tongariro Crossing

Hi to all! Its major hiking time with Frodo and Schmiegel as we geared up and did the Tongariro Crossing, NZ's best 1-day hike bla bla bla. No words can describe how nice this walk was but here's a general description for starters: The Tongariro Track is 17km long (one-way) and passes through several vegatation zones ranging from alpine shrubbery to places at higher altitude where there is no vergetation, to the lush podocarp forest as one descend from the Ketetahi Hut towards the end of the track. You pass several vulcanic craters with some nice crater lakes. OK, now that we have established the basics, let's talk about our own experience on the track.

From Napiers we had a 3-hour to the Discovery Lodge right next to the mountain range. We had bought some powerfoods and got up at 5:00 AM to get ready for the our transfer to the beginning of the trail. It was cold and windy at the start and we had to get fully covered before we could start the walk so we started as the last ones of our group. There we went, Frodo and Schmiegel up into mountains that could be taken right out of the LOTR. The first parts were rather steep and we had to considerably strain ourselves to pass the other group members. However, at the first peak, we were getting ahead. All alone we walked a big plane (=vlakte) between the vulcanoes which was as spooky as impressive. Then the wind started to blow violentlty so we strapped up as we went up the steepest hill along the Red Crater. There was loose gravel everywhere and the wind was so strong that we nearly were blown off the mountain. Little piece of dirt and rock flew by our ears and we had to hook our arms into each other and keep low to avoid a serious fall down. After that, we still had to descent with the same wind. We glided, hanging into the wind, down the loose gravel towards, the beautiful volcanic lakes like Emerald Lake and Blue Lake. The rest of the walk was more relaxed and we got the chance to touch some of the volcanic stones which were WARM(!) (the volcanoes are still active so that's why there are hot water springs and the like). The rest was more a less a cruise down and we increased the gap with the others. The surroundings were beautiful but our photocamera was empty and we only managed to get this picture of Sois just over the highest top. The real die-hards of course know that we DID shoot a lot of video footage which you can come watch when we're back. Then, you'll really know how windy and nice it was.

The final part of the walk was only downhill and we ended with forest walk. We did it in 5 and a half hours instead of the normal 7-8 and in our enthusiasm were 2 hours too early for our pickup back to the lodge. So we chilled a little and watched our DVD to pass the time. Man... this was one of the highlights of our entire trip so far. Our apologies that we only have a single picture but video footage is nice. Guess you'll have to wait. Thank you for reading this rant and on to the next "Chel and Sois' WorldWide Adventure"!!! (And many thanks to our sponsors as well ;-).