(Apologies for this late entry)
Thursday 24th Feb.
Feeling a bit extreme after we’d signed up for our Skydives over Lake Taupo, we had also visited the information centre that same day and booked our seats on a coach that drove right out into the middle of nowhere, to the beginning of a trek which took you on a walk across the middle of the Tongariro National Park. On the Wed night after grabbing our supplies for the trek from the supermarket, we’d headed towards the park and made our stop right outside the office of the bus company where we parked up the van and stayed for the night.
Awakening plenty of times through the night, we finally got our wake up call from Abe’s VERY ANNOYING phone alarm and got out of bed…at 5.15AM! It was still dark at this point so searching for our things throughout the van proved a much more difficult task then usual, however we managed to find the most important supplies, packed our bags and headed over the car park to where the coach had pulled up. We jumped on board and headed down the road to begin our big adventure.
We arrived at the beginning of the track at around 6.20, the sky was beginning to light up a little, so we took our ba
gs and made our way through the starting point to begin our walk. At this point, the sign read “Tongariro Exit Car Park….19.7KM….9 hours, 10 minutes”. Feeling wide awake, at this point, however stupid that may have sounded on your average day out, we were more then ready to tackle the walk and began our expedition with a nice brisk walk on what was a pretty smooth and easy pathway up towards the mountains in the distance.
About 30 minutes through and light was beginning to pick up so Tom whipped out his camera and began snapping at the morning sun as it rose behind the mountains. At this moment, the area seemed really quiet and very relaxing. The morning air was really fresh and it was a little chilly but we thought we’d come fully equipped for the route with some warm thermal tops so at this moment, we weren’t really feeling it. As we began to pass a near by stream to the left of us, we began reading a A4 sheet of paper that had been given out at the beginning, marking out the route and some of the landmarks you’d see as you walked along. The first area that we came to was the “Soda Streams” which had marked the rocks around them in a rusty orangey colour and so the Kenan and Kel quotes began. We’d also noted from the guide “Devils Staircase” which was rated as a difficult trek, the hardest you would encounter through the day if you didn’t take any of the volcano peaks into consideration.
About an hour in and our legs were starting to feel the climb as we continually ascended upwards, with no place to rest. We were managing to over take some of the more slower folk, which did have a positive effect on us mentally, but once we reached the bottom of Devils Staircase, it did start to daunt on us that this was going to be a tiring experience. In true British style, we whipped out the shorts and began our climb up the steep stairs, mostly dug out from rock from the hill.
Leaving the rest for dust, we finally, god knows how, made it to the top of Devils Staircase, fuelled only by banana and our desire to finish the track in record breaking time. It was when we reached this first stop, we had the opportunity to climb the first peak for the day, Mt. Ngauruhoe. There was a certain cut off time that they advised not to climb this peak which was 9.15am. Any later and you should just keep heading along the normal route, but making it to this peak at the earlier time of 8.15am, we certainly had plenty of time to conquer. And conquer we did, but not in any great fashion.
As we stared up at the mount, I can assure you, it looked absolutely ridiculous. The photo to your right really doesn’t do it any sort of justification. 
There are actually people climbing up that peak, but because of the sheer size of it, it’s almost impossible to make them out. And the sheer angle at which you were supposed to “walk” up, was probably not far off being vertical. The whole thing was pure rubble too so there were a lot of rocks that were resting and were able to come lose at any moment. As we stood at the bottom, I think we were both a little dubious as to whether the climb was something to be excited about, or whether it was just pure madness. And with Abe deciding on the first thought, he managed to persuade Tom (who at this point was completely against climbing) that this was a great idea and that it would be worth it when we reached the top.
The path up the volcano was pretty non existent. You pretty much had to find your own path up, although you couldn’t really go wrong because the terrain was pretty much the same the whole way around the peak. We set off, following a few folk that looked like they were kitted out and kne
w a good path up the volcano. Some crazy German bloke decided it was a good idea to go it alone, ignoring the cover of the larger rocks from falling debris and tanked it straight up the middle. It was only about a quarter of the way up when we heard a distinctive call for danger from above us, only to see a rock about the size of a large suitcase come hurtling down towards our direction. The biggest problem is that the rocks can be heading in a tot
ally different direction and sometimes travelling quite slow then all of a sudden they can change their speed and bounce off other rocks which sends them heading your way. The look of fear in this Germans eyes was that of somebody who was close to death. We have no idea how this rock didn’t hit him, but as it flew past, it must have been inches from taking him out. Would have been funny though. At this point, it’s fair to say we were both a bit concerned for our well being, so we did the typical thing and marched on. By the time we’d got to about half way, we’d completely lost the German bloke and been caught up by some Sweedish girls. Pretty good substitute. Tom thought we were hallucinating. As they pushed us up quicker, so as not to be 
beaten to the summit by a group of girls, we finally made it to the top, out of breath and ready for some lunch. Ready for a Burgerfuel, unfortunately, all we had was some bananas and some other bits and bobs. Tom cracked open the biscuits and we sat and had lunch with our new Ikea mates. The view from the top of the volcano of the ground below was pretty much non existent, in the sense that you couldn’t see anything below because we were above the clouds. The sight of the horizon though was phenomenal.
Going down was a little easier. There was a few moments of near death but we managed to find a route down which allowed us to pretty much ski the distance and when we reached the bottom, we immediately continued on our journey.
Next up was the red crater section of the walk, where we had to climb another steep set of stairs carved out of rock which seemed to go on forever. The view from the top though was another beauty and
made the struggle all the worth while. We were roughly about half way through the walk and so we stopped for an apple and a water break. It did manage to rain briefly for about 5 minutes but it was no more then a gentle spit. We then made our way down to the next section of the walk where there was some pools, right in the middle of the mountains. Sacred to the Maori, these pools were untouched and it was forbidden to swim in them, even though they looked so good.
The rest of the journey was pretty much downhill the whole way, but it just never seemed to end. We did stop for about 60 seconds to take a water break, at which point we think we may have seen Mark Webber. Tom was sure it was him. There wasn’t much more to see after the lakes so the rest of the journey was spent chatting to our friends and other people around us, before we finally made it to the end of the trail and caught the shuttle bus back to base camp.
We then set off for Abe’s uncles, which would be a long journey. Hope you enjoy the pictures and we’ll be back soon with some more news on our trip through the Glaciers and down towards Queenstown.
Miss everybody at home, the lads. X
