Today was going to a long day; my alarm woke me up at 5.30am, ouch. Half asleep, I got ready just in time for our bus. The bus was taking us from our hostel over to the Tongariro Crossing, an 18km trek over the Tongariro National Park.
We arrived and I chucked on all the clothes I had brought in my bag, it was freezing so I was glad I'd come prepared. The first part of the walk was nice and easy, more or less flat land with huge mountains on either side, a river by the side of the path and rocks dotted around everywhere. The next part was not so easy. This part of the walk is known as Devils Staircase, so so so many stairs follwed by more stairs follwed by some rocks that look like stairs follwed by some more stairs. It killed the calfs.
After hiking up here for about an hour, taking a couple of stops on the way we arrived at the top; the South Crater. Since the area has experience loads of volcanic activity, there are huge craters and mountains all over the place. From the top of the South Crater there was an amazing view of Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom from the Lord of the Rings films) it was amazing. Some people chose to walk up it but we were told it was extremley difficult so we gave it a miss, we didnt want to miss the last bus back to the hostel.
After a quick stop at the South Crater we walked up a bit more uphill, as if our legs wern't killing enough. This time the land was less steps and more just mountainside with rocks everwhere that you had to find your footing on. Glad I had my shiny new walking shoes on. Up the top of here was a massive red crater which looked really impressive. The view of Mt. Ngauruhoe was also amazing from here, you could see the reddy browness at the top and where a lava flow had been in the past, and also the bit that was the bridge in LotR.
We pushed onward, after everyone had had a bite to eat, I was stupid enough to to bring any food with me but my new friends were kind enough to share, hurray! From the red crater, we had to head down hill, much more of a task than we had imagined. The land here was all scree, loads of loose rocks and gravel that was impossible to get firm footing in. Most people fell over so many times but i only feel once, cos im awesome, and I had my new walking shoes on ha.
We got to the bottom and arrived at the Emerland Lakes, pools of water which were a really green blue, i think because they contain sulphur and acid, but they looked amazing. Very smelly though cos of the sulphur. Depsite the smell we stopped for lunch. Our legs were so so sore but we continued on.
Some more up hill, less steep this time atleast and we arrived at cetral crater. It was amazing, it was like a small desert on the top of the mountaint. The land across it was completley flat and covered with grey sand type stuff. At the otherside we went up our last bit off uphill and arrived at Blue Lake. It was a huge lake filling a crater that was in the mountain, and the water was shimmering loads in the sun. It looked pretty impressive.
After the blue lake the rest of the way was mostly down hill. By now we were all in so much pain and really wanted to finish our walk. The lack of exciting scenery for the next 2 hours also didn't help. But we plodded on and after an epic 7 hour hike we finally reached the car park. We were so happy. We colappsed on the grass, resting had never felt so good.
On the bus home I slept the whole way I was so tired. Back at our hostel we decided we were in need of an ice cream so we got one (1 scoop white chocolate, 1 scoop pistachio NUMMY) and then went and lay on the grass by Lake Taupo which is very close by to our hostel. For tea time we had some good old chippy chips, have to replace all the calories i burned today!
Tonight I think we're heading out for a drink or too, it's one of the girl's from our buses birthday tomorrow night so we have to have a bit celebration hopefully i wont spend too much money!
I get a bit of a long lie tomorrow morning untill the Kiwi Experience bus leaves for River Valley. I know people here who are working and are going to ask about me getting a job along side them, they dont think it'll be a problem. Good news!
