Remember way back when I put together a to-do list of things to be accomplished in New Zealand? Well, I can officially cross “Climb Mount Doom” off the list now. Well, sort of. Let me explain.
As soon as I made the conscious decision to leave Taupo for real and start traveling around the country, the weather spontaneously decided to do a 180. The day that I left for Tongariro National Park, it was decidedly cloudy in the morning and practically hailing by the evening. I went out for one last night on the town late Tuesday and knew that I had to be out in front of Rainbow Lodge by 7am Wednesday, so I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night. Then 7:15 rolled around and they still hadn’t come by, so I went ahead and gave Stray a call on my phone. Apparently I was supposed to be psychic because they told me that, since the Crossing had been cancelled for the day on account of bad weather, they would be picking me up at 10:30 instead, which is a bloody big difference from 7am. They insisted that they had left messages for me in reception at Rainbow, even though I had explained to them before that I wasn’t staying at Rainbow and was just getting picked up there because they wouldn’t go to Blackcurrant. Sigh. So that wasn’t off to a great start.
I then proceeded to drag my enormous backpack back to Blackcurrant and helped myself to some last-minute coffee. It actually worked out alright in the end because I got to give Beth and everyone a proper hug and goodbye as I was leaving, and I was able to do a last check of everything to make sure I wasn’t forgetting something. Before too long, 10:30 rolled around, and the bus came to take me away from my long-term home in Taupo.
I should explain at this point that all of the Stray drivers have a unique nickname to match something about their personalities. It usually has something to do with the circumstances of their training, I think – if someone was really good at parking the bus in a tight squeeze between two cones, for example, they might have a nickname like “Wedge” or something. The guy that I got for that first name was a really young guy named “Daisy,” but I never did get the back story behind it. Maybe because he was so pretty.
Anyways, we set off towards Tongariro just as the rain started to begin in earnest. Everyone on the bus was pretty subdued on account of the gloominess outside, so I was left to my own devices and chose to watch the lake as we drove around it. A little bit after lunchtime, Daisy came onto the loudspeakers and told us that he knew about a certain place that was good for stopping at. It turned out to be a thermal hot pool area just off the road with lots of trails and bridges winding through the place. The rain had stopped just long enough for us to climb out and give it a look, so we decided to check it out for about half an hour.
I guess the area used to be a place for Maori families to wash their laundry and hang out way back in the day. Sort of like giant medicinal Jacuzzis. Some of the pools used to be active geysers, and boiling mud was interspersed here and there. Probably the coolest thing was the stream rising up over the trees from miles around – definitely gave the whole place a pretty mystical vibe. So we stayed there for a little while and took a few pictures, but then we had to climb back onto the bus before it really started to come down.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Once we entered the park, you could just barely see out your window through all of the mist, so there was no chance of seeing the mountains. On a nice day, they would have been right in front of us, but we just had to make do with hearing about them instead. Basically, there are three main mountains in the national park: Tongariro, Ruapehu, and Ngauruhoe. Ruapehu is the big, spread-out one spaced further apart from the others, Ngauruhoe is the cone-shaped one, and Tongariro is the slightly hilly one next to Ngauruhoe. Apparently they’re all still active, but Ruapehu had the most recent eruption in 1996, covering the entire North Island with ash. Tongariro should theoretically be the largest of all of them, but it also has the most violent eruptions, so it tends to blow itself to pieces every couple hundred years or so.
Now, this is when I say that I technically climbed Mount Doom but not quite. In terms of the Lord of the Rings films, Ngauruhoe is the one that Peter Jackson used for all of the faraway shots. When people think of what Mount Doom looks like as a shape, they think of that one. But most of the close-range filming of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum that didn’t occur in a studio was filmed over in the Whakapapa Ski Resort at the base of Ruapehu. Of the three, Tongariro is the one that has the least connection to the movies, but that’s basically the most popular and most doable one. When you do the Crossing, you have the option of climbing to the Ngauruhoe summit as well, but it’s an extra three hours return trip on top of the eight hours it already takes just to do Tongariro, so only serious hikers can really do that in time. The shuttle drops you off at the entrance at 8:30 and gives you until 4:30 to make it to the other side, or else you have to pay an additional $100 fee for a separate pick up. Considering that we made it there at 3:30 with minimal breaks and going as fast as we could, there was absolutely no way that we could have done Ngauruhoe as well without flat out running the entire way and skipping lunch. Shame. Maybe next time.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. That was Thursday. Wednesday was still pouring down rain, so there wasn’t much to do but check into our accommodations and curl up under the covers all afternoon. We were supposed to be booked in this nice place called The Park, but a school group had booked the entire place out that night, so we went to this little mountain lodge next door instead. It was actually very nice, and we had the whole place to ourselves. The only downside was that it had no access to Internet, and I needed to get on long enough to change my Stray pass itinerary to reflect an extra stopover day. So I put on my heavy winter clothes and a big rain jacket to march down the block to another place with a connection. In that short period of five minutes out in the elements, I got so soaked that I had to immediately strip off everything I was wearing and take a boiling hot shower the moment I got back. I was very skeptical about the Crossing being good the next morning, but I went to bed on an optimistic note anyways.
As luck would have it, the rain miraculously cleared up overnight, leaving us with the most spectacular view of the mountains at sunrise. I woke up around 6:30 or 7:00 and tried to get ready as quietly as possible with about five or six other people in the same room, asleep. They were all continuing on with Stray that day, so they didn’t need to get ready for a few more hours. I managed to sneak out and put all of my stuff downstairs without incident, and then I checked in with the main guy coordinating everything to make sure that I was on the list. The bus was supposed to come pick us up at 8:00, so that didn’t really give me time for breakfast – just a piece of hot cross bun and a granola bar from my snack stash. A few other people from Stray were milling around in the lobby at that point, so I got to chatting with them a bit about the hike. Four of them in particular – Emily, Sammi, Alex, and Michael – were from the UK and ended up next to me on the bus. As it turned out, I wound up just hanging with them for the rest of the day and shamelessly butted into their group for the hike. That worked out perfectly because they wanted some group photos of all of them together, and I wasn’t able to take pictures of myself with my stubby little arms. Plus they were just generally nice people and made good company for wallowing in our mutual misery.
It took about 20 minutes to drive out to the car park where the trail begins, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the view until then. I was a bit bummed to learn that we wouldn’t be heading anywhere near Ruapehu, but I got over it after hearing the words “19 kilometers” and “eight-hour hike” used in the same sentence. I was still determined to get in Ngauruhoe, though. The guide said that it was technically possible but that you had to let him know and not waste any time at all. My line of thinking at the time was, “Psh. I climbed freakin’ Mount Fuji with only a few hours of sleep. I think I can handle a little extra detour.” Oh, how gloriously naïve.
Anyways, after a little pep talk and some last-minute advice, the driver let us out to fend for ourselves and drove off with the van. My new UK hiking partners took a brief detour to the bathrooms first while I examined the map, and then we were off! …Slowly.
The first bit was fairly mild with some long, flat stretches over creeks and grassland. Over our right shoulders, we could just make out the faint outline of Mount Taranaki in the distance. That’s over by New Plymouth, so that should tell you guys how clear that day was. We paused at a few little places for photo ops and took our time navigating across little bridges at the base. Right around the first hut, there was a side track out to Soda Springs, basically a cute little waterfall coming off the lower slopes. We decided to check that out briefly as well and took a few pictures in front of that. Over there, we got the only hint that it had been raining the day before in the form of sticky mud, but it was nothing like the Tauhara variety, so no big deal. Then it was time to climb The Stairs.
I had been told by other friends who have done the Crossing that the Devil’s Staircase is the hardest part, and that once you’re past that, the rest is pretty much a breeze. So when I saw a few little stairs in the very beginning and climbed over them without any difficulty, I thought I was in for an easy day. Yeah, apparently those stairs were, like, the bunny hill or something, because the actual stairs were monstrous. I think the only thing I can compare them to is the staircase in Ocarina of Time when Link is trying to save Zelda from Ganondorf at the very end, and the organ music just keeps getting louder as you climb. Or maybe the stairs in Final Fantasy VII, when Cloud and Co. are trying to sneak into Shinra but have to stop every ten floors or so. It’s probably a combination of the two. I should also mention that they weren’t really “stairs” because they were each two feet high and spaced just far apart to work your leg muscles to maximum capacity. I think we took no less than four water breaks just to reach the top of them. Every time we got to what we perceived to be the top, we would look around the corner and see another energy-sapping stretch just beyond. I was exhausted by the end of all that.
View from the top of the stairs. Mt. Taranaki way out there.
Then, just beyond that, there’s a little rest area for people to catch their breath and take pictures. It’s also the point of no return for people thinking of climbing Ngauruhoe. As I mentioned before, I was determined to do it, but after those stairs, I could barely move, much less consider climbing to the summit, which is a good two or three extra hours of hiking. Oh well. Another day, I suppose. Some really hardcore guys from our bus actually did climb to the top, and they were really scratched up afterwards. Apparently the slope is practically vertical and full of loose rocks, so each step slides you back an additional inch or two and makes it difficult to maintain your balance. I guess one guy fell at some point and cut his arm open on the jagged rocks, and it was just a bloody mess when I ran into him later. So I’m not really that disappointed about wimping out after all.
Next time
After that, we got a little reprieve in the form of this wide, flat valley that went on for a good fifteen minutes or so. By the way, I should mention that all of this looked like something straight out of Mordor. It doesn’t matter that the majority of the filming took place on Ruapehu – in my mind, Tongariro is pretty darn close to the actual thing. We had just started to catch our breath in that little area when we were faced with yet another hill to climb. Now, this one didn’t have stairs or anything, but in some ways it was just as difficult. The temperatures had been changing drastically all morning. When we first arrived, we were all in two or three layers of shirts and rain jackets with gloves and two pairs of socks each. By the time we got to the Stairs, we had stripped down to T-Shirts and jeans. Now, facing another climb completely exposed to the elements, we had to stop and put all of our layers back on again. The wind was intense. We had been shielded from it in the valley, but as soon as we reached the crest, we were nearly knocked over by it. Plus the footing left a lot to be desired because the terrain was a sort of black, sandy gravel that tended to give way under your feet.
Finally, though, we made it all the way to the top, and we were able to look down at all that we had accomplished. I have to say that the view was pretty impressive. We had been looking out towards the west all morning, but once we crossed over the last peak, we were able to see the eastern side as well. The foreground of Tongariro consisted of craggy, red earth and looked a lot like pictures I’ve seen of the Grand Canyon. Just a bit further out, we could see a few mountain lakes that had filled up old craters, and way off in the distance, we could just barely make out Lake Taupo. Very nice. The crater itself was pretty awe-inspiring itself, and the scientist in me kind of wanted to find out why it had been dyed so deeply red in certain places. I’m going to guess iron deposits or something.
Just below the Red Crater are the Emerald Lakes, which are this retro neon blue color on account of minerals in the surrounding rocks. The whole place smelled strongly of sulphur, but that didn’t stop us from sliding carefully downward for a closer look. Since it was just about noon at that point, we stopped for a quick lunch and what was left of our water supply. The UK guys apparently thought way ahead and had four different kinds of sandwiches ready, while I had to make do with snacky stuff. That’s the problem with Tongariro – it’s so small that it doesn’t have certain basic necessities, like stores. So they had bread and materials left over from traveling before, but I couldn’t go get anything beyond mixed nuts and dried prunes without spending a fortune. Oh well. Good to know for next time.
After that, it was all pretty much downhill. Literally. After the lakes, we really just wanted to sit down someplace warm and cozy, so we set out on a brutal pace down the mountain. I was able to chat with Sammi and Emily a bit during this time, but after a while, everyone was too tired to even make conversation. We all just trudged on and took minimal breaks. The weirdest thing happened as soon as we hit the tree line, though. The barren, rocky terrain spontaneously and instantly became a tropical rainforest without warning. I basically just rounded a corner in the brush and was surrounded by lush vegetation and running water, of all things. That was a bit bizarre in its unexpectedness, but it was definitely not unwelcome after being out in the sun all day. I managed to get a sunburn right across my nose from where my sunscreen had wiped off, so now I kind of look like Rudolph.
And then we finally hit the bottom at 3:30. We were absolutely exhausted, so we had no qualms waiting the additional hour for the bus to take us back. We just crashed in the grass and didn’t move for quite a while. Everything after that was fairly straightforward. We got a ride back to the Park, soaked in the Jacuzzi for a good two hours, and then slept like the dead for eleven hours straight. Since Stray was being weird with scheduling again, we took the next day completely off to chill, but then Saturday was off to Wellington! Yay! I’ll be back to talk to you guys about all of that as soon as possible. Catch you then!
Christmas and New Years were both very bittersweet days. I hosted Christmas dinner, thanks to the "resort style" accommodations I've had housesitting. I don't think any of us felt as though it was really Christmas but we played along and cooked our favorite dishes from home, drank our favorite concoctions, and took turns skyping family/friends back home all throughout the day and some of us into the night--depending on what time zone we were from! The weather was gorgeous, though a bit hot, but we waited out the sun and ate our "orphan backpackers'" meal outside in the yard and later exchanged our secret santa gifts. It's funny the things you exchange as travelers. Nothing too expensive or lavish--as it will likely be broken, stolen or lost before you return home and even more so no one can afford it anyway!; also, nothing to big, bulky, or heavy--as we all considered that these gifts will end up being carried on our backs for lengthy periods of time or being weighed in an airport and we don't want to be responsible for a friend's overweight charges do we?! And so all the gifts were thoughtful--practical, edible, or small-which was just perfect! :) 
