Tongariro Crossing

After some quiet days, we arrive up at Taupo where many of the riders are keen to get onto some serious adventure activities. I stay at the very comfortable Tiki Lodge which has a dining area that looks out across Lake Taupo. Very cold here, but perfect conditions for everything including those going skydiving, but cosy with all the mod cons. Manage to locate a free wireless intenet with a little bit of effort, which was convenient as I had a fair bit of work to get cleared before heading off tomorrow on the Tongariro crossing.



We catch a shuttle bus before dawn out to the area, where they drop us off to go for the hike. I almost skipped the first operator that showed up, as they'd not had me on their booking list and I saw it as the perfect opportunity to abort and await the alternative operator that had two pickup times for when we reach the other end. The driver talks me round and off we go.. the forecast is for a perfect conditions which is great.

I check amongst others on the bus to see if anyone is going to do the extra summit climb and Pariska says "why wouldn't you". So we find out what we need to know to go the extra distance, and off we go.


After an hour or so we reach the base of the Ngauruhoe summit. We look around for the best way to get up there. Some start up one way, while others try further around. Fortunately we pick the easier way it seems but still no walk in the park.



Only a few hundred meters to go... those tiny coloured bits are people!

Over the two hours that we climbed it, it was hard going with slippery rocks all the way up, and getting more slippery as we reached the very peak. It seemed we'd never get there, especially while being on a time limit. All the way up we were searching for firm rock from which to take a rest, before going another 20m section.



Once we got up there, we could see forever. No time for savouring the view from the top for too long though, as we had to get onto the rest of the crossing. In order to keep the schedule you had to "ski" down the side of the mountain on the loose rock. A quick ride if you can do it, but unfortunately for some the risk was too great which meant a very long hard climb down also. I awaited down the bottom for Pariska to climb down, but by now we were very late, and she was disheartened about being tired and rushed to get back. We still had about another 10km of crossing to do, fortunately not as difficult or continuous as the last one, but still no walk in the park for another hour.



Red Crater.. one of the next sites to view without having such an extended climb.

Fortunately after we got past the emerald lake area, it was all down hill and we ran all the way back. However we were still late and the bus driver wasn't happy about waiting. After more than 8 hours of hiking, climbing, and running, no time for lunch we looked forward to getting back to Tiki Lodge at about 5:30pm