Frodo Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Us

Not sure what Frodo was complaining about, there is a shuttle service that will take you almost halfway to Mt. Doom (Mt. Ngaruhoe) for around $10. I’m sure he could have traded that ring for a free ride. All joking aside, we have now seen Mt. Doom in person and walked all the way around it. We did pass up the chance to summit the mountain (we were afraid of the oversized spiders) as it was a 3 hours return journey and we had 10 more miles ahead of us. Mt. Doom is located in Tongariro National Park. We spent Saturday night through Monday afternoon exploring the area. We weren’t sure if we were going to have the chance to hike the Tongariro Crossing, known as the nations best one day walk, and an alpine crossing at that, but we for fortunate enough to wake up to good weather Sunday morning allowing us to take the shuttle to the trailhead.

We began the crossing with about 200 other hikers, most of whom were only doing the 17km crossing. After the first 3 miles, the crowds began to thin as we reached the top of the crossing. We could try to describe the incredible landscape, but the pictures will probably do a better job. One thing we will say is how varied the terrain was on this hike. We saw probably four very distinct section within the 25 miles we walked.

Rather than doing just the crossing, we had planned in advanced to do part of the Tongariro Northern Circuit, which took us up and over the crossing, then around the back side of Mt. Doom, into a valley, and back to where we met the shuttle. Once we turned off the crossing, we didn’t see another hiker until that evening when we arrived at the hut. The backside of Mt. Doom had a Mordor-ish look–we could see why Peter Jackson chose this location for the filiming of several parts of the movie series. We can’t wait to watch them again!

Our night in the hut was nice and warm. We had our own room, and shared the rest of the facility with two Canadians, a Kiwi, and a Brit. We also got to take part in setting possum (not the ugly ones we have at home, these are cute, but invasive and not native to NZ) traps using apple slices.

The next day we tramped back with a very different sky overhead. Misty rain fell the majority of the walk back which motivated our legs to move quickly. It was still a really nice hike and we imagined the views we would have seen had the weather been different. We were very thankful, however, for the great weather we were given the day before. We would not have been able to do the crossing had we arrived one day later (or one day earlier for that matter). Also, we were glad for the tip to do the circuit in two days rather than the four prescribed by our tramping book. This freed up a couple more days to explore other parts of the North Island.

One of the places we didn’t expect to be able to go was New Plymouth and Mt. Taranaki. But, we found ourselves pulling into another Top 10 Holiday Park Monday afternoon in New Plymouth. To our surprise the weather of Tongariro didn’t follow us (until Tuesday evening). We were able to take a really nice walk down the coastal walkway. There was great surf and we had the chance to watch surfers, kneeboarders, paddle boarders, and boogie boaders, and one guy with some crazy canoe thing. We were also able to see the whole of Mt. Taranaki which is the centerpiece of this town. It is a very cool set up here with the beach and mountain being about 20 minutes apart.

Today (Tuesday) we spent the day hiking on Mt. Taranaki, exploring Pukepura Park, and visiting a cool museum. The hike was less than spectacular. With a weather system moving in and low clouds all around we couldn’t really see anything, including the mountain we were hiking. The sun was shining when we came back into town which was nice for checking out the park. It had a small zoo, a lake, tons of walking trails, and an arboreteum with over 25,000 plants, among other things. When it began to look like rain, we headed inside to the museum full of Maori artifacts and interesting displays on area attractions.