Tongariro Crossing

One of the highlights of the whole Taupo region is a big hike - reportedly the best one day hike in all of New Zealand - the Tongariro Crossing. It involves trekking through spectacular volcanic landscapes with sulphuric lakes, picture-perfect volcano cones, seriously sulphurically-stinky steam vents, lots of snow and ice, and really wild, untouched wilderness (the main volcanic peak here was used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies, and it's active - i.e. still steaming away). The only thing that could have stopped me doing this hike was severe weather, so we went straight to the tourist place to check out the weather forecast and the various options for doing the hike. (Some good pictures here.)

Apparently most people book a tour, which means they bus a group of people to the start of the trek, guide (i.e. herd) them all the way along the trail, and then pick you up later in the day at the other end. Naturally enough I didn't like the idea of this at all, as it forces you to stay within a group, and the worst part is you have to follow a guide and wait for the slowest person in your group - which can be a nightmare of course. From experience I know a guide is never required on these hikes, especially on one of the most heavily trekked routes in New Zealand for goodness sake! The whole idea, to me, of a long, tough hike in the wilderness is the freedom to be able to do your own thing, stop where and when you want, explore off little side tracks, and basically to just make it up as you go along.

It would also cost NZ$100, which they tried to tell us was a great price, as the normal winter price is twice that. The Winter price is because you need a guide with Alpine experience and you'll probably need crampons for the snow and ice - but the weather looked good for the next couple of days, and there was no fresh snow on the hike, so the Summer price was being offered. But of course, that also implied, at least to my way of thinking, that you had no need for a guide at all, and that you also wouldn`t need any specialist equipment.

Anyway, I really didn't like the sound of this tour thing at all, and after a bit of a chat with the really friendly girl in the tourist office she informs me that we could just drive ourselves to the start of the hike, hike over half way along the track to see all the scenic highlights, and then head back the same way to our van and just drive ourselves home. This sounded just the ticket to me, and after a bit of debate with the Negator (who expressed a multitude of the usual fears and worries), we decided that we would just do our own thing.

One of Sarah's worries, which we'd heard from a couple of people, was that the car parks were not safe at all. But I simply heeded this warning by packing up all the stuff from the van into our ruckpacks (it seemed that I hadn't even seen my rucksack in over two months, as it had been buried under the bed in the van), and then storing the rucksacks in the safety of our hostel. The idea was to leave the van practically empty, with all the curtains open, and so make it clearly unworthwhile to break into.

So our plans set we got up early the following morning, 7am, made sandwiches and had a big breakfast and then headed off on the one-hour drive to the start of the Tongariro Crossing route. When we arrived and were about to start hiking we suddenly realised that we'd left all our food behind!

As we were leaving our hostel Sarah had left the bag of prepared food and snacks on the front seat of the van, but had then gone to the toilet. As I got into the van I looked at this bag and thought it was our general food bag (because I saw the breakfast stuff, sandwich making stuff like mustard and mayonnaise, etc., stuff we wouldn't need on the hike, and so I put it back into a cupboard in the hostel kitchen (since we were removing everything from the van so that it looked well and truly empty)).

So after much recrimination, swearing, and thinking we might have to abandon the hike for that day (and the weather looked perfect, which only made things worse), I started rooted about the van for any kind of food at all. Luckily I found some instant noodles buried away, and having our own cooker in the van meant I could easily and very quickly cook up the noodles. Feeling very much relieved, I packed up the lovingly cooked noodles and off we headed on the hike.

There isn't much point in describing the hike itself in detail, just check that website I pointed to already. But needless to say it really is stunning. The weather was intermittently cloudy, but we had lots of time, so by simply waiting at each location for a few minutes the clouds would inevitably clear and the full splendor of the scenery would be revealed. Interestingly though, at one stage as we were just sitting waiting for the clouds to clear, the group of people on the tour that Sarah had initially wanted to go with passed us by. As I had thought, they were an unwieldy big group being gentally herded by their guide, and so passed by the short stretch of trail quite quickly. Only one of their group waited behind with his camera though, and he was the only one of the whole group to see the spectacular view as the clouds cleared - everyone else on that tour missed that particular viewpoint completely, poor sods!

Having plenty of time, we also took the side trip up to the Tongariro Summit itself (I don`t think the tour groups take that option at all). This was a bit of an adventure in it's own right, as we took what seemed to be a shortcut path straight across the ice along a steep slope (we'd passed 3 English hikers coming back that way). But after Sarah had a scary wee slip (she wasn't in any real danger though, as we'd seen 2 of the 3 English guys deliberately slide down the same slope on their arses for a laugh!), the footsteps in the snow seemed to disappear. I think it was just getting a bit late in the day, and the previous footsteps were filling in with wind drifted snow, so we just turned back and took a different route to the summit. After a bit of a linger at the windy and chilly summit to soak up the vistas, we turned back and started the long hike back to the van.

It's an easy enough walk, mostly on the flat, but just very, very long (since we`d actually walked over halfway aong the entire trail and then turned back, we were actually hiking further than everyone else taking the guided tours). We were both pretty exhausted when we got back to the van, but it had been a truly fantastic days hiking. Driving back to Taupo I decided we well and truly deserved a stop-off at the local hot thermal springs.

This was possibly the most relaxing thing I've ever done, given the exersion of the day's hike - the naturally hot water was instantly rejuvenating, and I could feel my muscles being soothed immediately. But then a very friendly guy (not an employee, just another punter), came over and told us not to put our heads in the water (which I'd been doing constantly). He pointed out the rather indistinct warning signs posted around the place which did indeed warn of 'Amoebic meningitis', but they really were very subtle to say the least! Apparently the disease can only enter your system through the ears, so all you have to do to be safe is keep your head out of the water. He told us he'd complained himself the last time he'd been there that the warning signs were far too easy to miss, but they'd done nothing about it (and their website makes only a very passing reference to the issue). Anyway, heeding that warning (all natural hot springs have the same possible, but highly improbable, problem), I felt great afterwards, and getting back to the hostel I had a lovely dinner of the sandwiches we'd prepared that morning!