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(What is a journal about New Zealand without a LotR
reference, eh?)
Today we woke up at the crack of dawn to do the Tongariro
crossing, the best day hike in New Zealand, which cuts a track in between two
volcanoes, Mount Tongariro on the one side and Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom) on
the other. We set out on our journey
with positive remarks about the weather (“looks to be a really nice day for it”), followed by
not so positive remarks on the weather (“Is really cold up there with winds
about 55 kph, so… not really a good day to do the crossing”), followed by the
silver lining of “this should lift after a few hours and turn out to be a
really nice day in the afternoon.”
Alpine weather being hard to predict, and usually nothing at all like
the regular weather (in Taupo it was sunny and clear), I just hoped for the
best and started on the hike.
I suppose I should have seen the warning signs when we
reached the carpark and could only see ten feet up the mountain. At that point, that was assuming there even
was a mountain, which we could only guess was a vague northish direction. We ventured forth into the fog.
At first the hike was quite pleasant, the fog adding a
mystical, ethereal element to the hike, and hiding the crowds in the haze. We hiked through a barren landscape of
grasses, moss and shrubs until we reached the first major ascent. The air grew steadily colder and wetter and
we saw a large number of people, many of whom were wearing rubbish bag ponchos,
who had presumably turned back. At this
point I myself grew frustrated with the poor visibility and the fact that the
clouds were evidently not going to lift after all. After we had leveled off for a while and
found ourselves on a flat muddy stretch that almost resembled a beach, we came
to the conclusion: ‘I think we’re in a crater.’
I’ve always wanted to walk into the crater of a volcano, but I’d like to
know for sure if I have. We climbed
higher as the pockmarked, pumice-scattered landscape grew devoid of plant life
and became foggier, colder, wetter, and windier still. The mountain fell away on both sides of the
trail, and we may have been straddling the summit, or there may have been
craters on either side, I had no idea.
When there was a particularly steep slope I pondered ‘I think that’s Red
Crater to our right’. At that point,
everything became a crater, and every slope disappeared into an endless
abyss. About fifteen minutes later and,
‘no, I think that’s Red Crater’. Then we
came right to the shores of the Emerald Lakes, which looked so beautiful in
photographs they were the reason I wanted to do this hike. Unfortunately, they were so fogged in that it
wasn’t until we were right up next to them that we could see them, though the
smell of sulfur was a good indication we had been getting close. ‘Oh, there’s Emerald Lake,’ I said. ‘Oh, there’s another one.’ I checked the map. ‘Oh, there are three!’ We never saw the third. We walked a short while longer and decided we
were in another crater, then began our descent.
I was taking a picture when Ross exclaimed ‘Blue sky! Blue sky! Look quick before you miss it!’ I didn’t look fast enough. Eventually we made it below cloud level to
discover it was still a very nice sunny day. We turned a corner and were unexpectedly
plunged into a forest, which made for pleasant walking until we reached the end
of the track. We caught the bus to the
backpackers in the National Park, and as we pulled in and unloaded our bags,
both mountains peeked out to say hello and within the hour there were no clouds
in sight.
