Tongariro crossing

In a country that sells itself on extreme sports, it's not surprising to find that wherever you look the locals are marketing their trip as the best in New Zealand. Consistent with this, the Tongariro Crossing is supposed to be THE best one day hike in New Zealand. I'm always a bit sceptical of claims like these, and it leads me to think that the Tongariro Crossing is perhaps the busiest one day hike in New Zealand. However, when it comes to it, we didn't want to miss out on this.

The crossing goes through some dramatic and unforgettable scenery. The 18.5 km track crosses a saddle between the Tongariro and Nagauruhoe volcanoes which rise suddenly out of the plains of central North Island. The trail is billed as a demanding alpine track that takes between 7 and 9h. The weather on the top can be different from that at the base and it's recommended to be prepared to turn back when the visibility is poor or in strong winds.

Of course poor visibility or strong winds are fairly relative, and with this in mind we booked transport to and from the start and finish of the track for the next day, despite the poor weather forecast. The alarm went early in the morning, a glance out the window confirmed that the weather was far from perfect, and not being disheartened I cheerfully pointed out that it'd be just like Scotland. "Or Finland", Anni added. The majority of other people who had signed up for transport cancelled, clearly having no desire to go hiking in what resembled Scottish weather. I was quietly relieved, that today was one of the few days where the Tongariro Crossing was probably not the busiest trek in New Zealand.

The bus driver didn't inspire much confidence when he said that if it was up to him he wouldn't allow people to go up the mountains as it was much too dangerous in this kind of weather. We didn't pay much heed to his warnings of getting lost, although we did take the precaution of back plotting our trail on the GPS. We set off from the car park in drizzle and imperfect visibility. I wouldn't have described the conditions as dangerous, the weather forecast suggested that we'd get wet, we wouldn't have great views but didn't look like we'd be in for any trouble, and the our current observations didn't suggest any differently. We started up the marked and really fairly obvious trail, wondering what the bus driver would have said if he'd seen the conditions in which we'd tried to climb Foggy Peak.

View of Mount Ngauruhoe, famous to Lord of the Rings fans as Mount Doom

We'd hiked "primative trails" in America, and knew that when the tourist board say strenuous or poorly marked, that they probably mean that the trail isn't made of asphalt. We expected differently, of the Kiwis. The trail began with a gently rising and well graded path. The trail then rose steeply to a col between the two mountains, and for two fairly fit people provided little challenge. As we reached the top the cloud rolled in and reduced visibility to a few tens of meters. You might think that navigating through a col between two mountains in poor visibility wouldn't be too difficult. You'd have distinctive contours on either side to navigate from, you could take a bearing from the compass and following mountain spurs can't be too challenging. Indeed it wasn't too challenging; there was a wand placed every ten meters, so even if all but closed your eyes navigation would be bare blåbær (only blueberries).

Bleak scenery between the two craters.

The views of Tongariro were constantly obscured by low cloud.

Your not particularly wet correspondents looking undaunted close to the high point.

After a couple of hours of uphill walking we reached the Red Crater, which unfortunately we couldn't see. At 1900m, this formed the high point of our trek. Although the track had gained about 1000m in a shy 9km, it hadn't felt either demanding or dangerous. For two Europeans, a more daunting task would have been to do it in full sun! The track had past through some eerie and near lifeless scenery. We walked over lava fields inhabited only by lichen and the odd mountain daisy. The mist added to the atmosphere and gave the whole place an otherworldly feel.

From now, the trail descended. We stopped by the Emerald Lakes. Although partly hidden by the mist, we could see how they got their name. The colour is caused by minerals leaching out of the volcanic rock. We didn't linger long amid the sulphurous smell, but continued downhill.

On the shore of one of the Emerald Lakes.

Minerals leached from surrounding rocks.

As we descended the lifeless lava gave way to grassy and boggy slopes and finally forest. Streams ran down the mountain bringing with them the stench of amonia and sulphur. Acrid steam clouds billowed up from springs on the mountain side. Although we'd left the summit zone, it seemed that Tongariro wanted to remind us it was still a volcano.

Steam rising from Ketatahi Springs

Five hours after starting we arrived at the car park at the end of the trail, a good three hours before the bus was due to pick us up. We'd done a fantastic trek. The weather had added to the atmosphere, but never felt threatening. We'd avoided the crowds, we'd avoided the heat and we were pretty pleased with ourselves. After deciding not to wait for the bus and hitching back to the hostel and eating chicken burgers, we find ourselves hiking and photographing yet another waterfall and using our excess energy at the climbing wall in the hostel. No one had exaggerated the splendour of the Tongariro crossing, but we felt the difficulty had seen considerable escalation. There seems a fine line between warning the general tourist and giving accurate information about treks. When activities that are billed as strenuous aren't really, you end up in a "cry wolf" situation. We were entering this dangerous territory, tomorrow we were going mountain biking on a "demanding" trail. Despite the fact that I hadn't ridden anything more demanding than a gravel track for years and Anni hadn't ever been mountain biking, we were of the opinion that the New Zealand tourist definition of demanding would only make a fat middle aged person out of breath. But the next day we learned differently......