Abel Tasman : The Cancun of New Zealand

First things first: Abel Tasman is the Cancun of New Zealand. It’s hard to describe just how clear or blue the water there is because the photos just don’t do the place justice.  You just have to go there yourself to understand.  I’ll start from the beginning.  By the way, this post is going to be a little bit shorter than some of the other ones because it's mostly about walking and taking pictures.  Not a lot of commentary needed for that.  Here we go.

We woke up well after the sun had risen the next day.  The opportunity to sleep in had been way too tempting to dismiss, so we took our time getting ready.  At this point, now that several weeks have passed, I can’t quite remember what Elwin did or who went where, but I decided to do a scenic walk along the park.  Yeah, that thing is humongous.  I think attempting to scratch the surface of it would probably take two days at least.  A lot of people end up doing the three or four day trek where they camp out overnight and do all of the little side hikes.  I only had a day, so I decided to employ the use of an aqua taxi.  You basically ask them to take you out to a certain point and drop you off so that you can walk back on foot.  Or you walk out there and have a predetermined time and place in mind for meeting them to take you back.  Either way works, and it’s much easier than trying to do the whole thing up and down yourself.  I did it the first way, but now I wonder if it would have been easier the second way since you can just look forward to a nice trip home at the end.  I guess it doesn’t really matter.

A good majority of the bus was doing a big catamaran thing where they got about 23 people together to rent out a boat for the day.  It involved cruising, swimming, drinking, and barbecuing pieces of meat all day and then coming back around dinner time.  I was tempted to do that as well, but it was only my second day with this particular group of people, and I didn’t want to be stuck on a boat all day without knowing if we were going to click or not.  It’s never a good idea to be at the mercy of someone else’s schedule, so I decided to my own thing that day and do something a lot less expensive.  It turned out to be a good call because they were fully booked out, and the water was too cold for swimming anyways.  I think they ended up having a good time, but I’m glad that I made the decision that I did.  Felt like I saw a lot more. 

So I went over to reception and booked the next available bus to come pick me up, then I just hung out with Barney for the twenty minutes it took for them to arrive.  The aqua taxis themselves are kind of cool because they have to be dragged out into the water by these gigantic tractors.  The water is super shallow for quite a ways out into the cove, so a guy can literally pull the boat halfway out into the bay before having to turn back.  I was way in the back of the boat, so I had a good, unobstructed view of the scenery behind us.  The only problem was that it was a bit chilly that morning, and I was only in a T-shirt at the time, so I was pretty cold for the ride out there.  It eventually warmed up later in the day and got really nice, though.

  
The tractor that towed us out there.  Kayak. 

Once we opened up the throttle and hit the water, it was pretty easy going.  Our guide took us around the other way first to show us Split Apple Rock, which is fairly self-explanatory, and then circled around to take us all out to our scheduled destinations.  A few of the other passengers on board were doing the drop-off and pick-up later in the day, so I was one of the first to get out at Torrent Bay.  I had had the option of disembarking on the spot before that – Anchorage Bay – but the lady in the reception had told me to try Torrent because it was near Cleopatra’s Pool and involved a little extra scenery.  If you look on the map, Torrent is just about one third of the way up the main track, and almost right next to Anchorage.  You would assume, then, that it wouldn’t take long to walk from one to the other.  Yeah, I’m not going to make any assumptions again anytime soon.   

 
Split Apple Rock and heading out towards Torrent Bay

The boat pulled right up to the beach at Torrent and dropped me off, telling me to just head along the beach in a certain direction and to try and make it back to camp before dark.  Sounded easy enough.  This is where those amazing, postcard-worthy beaches come in.  It was hard not to take a picture every few seconds because it was just that pretty.  I decided to follow the reception lady’s advice and followed the map towards Cleopatra’s Pool.  According to the signs, that would take me quite a ways out into the forest and add an extra hour to my hike back, but I was feeling pretty well-rested after all of that sleep.  The trek out there was definitely memorable with trails winding in and out of the trees, always within sight of the water.  One of the coolest thing was the fact that every campground was surrounded by little beach houses.  People actually live – or at least vacation – in these bungalows right next to the water and have sailboats to go cruising every day.  Sounds like quite a life.              

  

Cute little houses on the water

This trail in particular went on for a good hour and a half through the brush, and when I finally found Cleopatra’s Pool, it was at a dead end.  There was no way to loop around to the other side of the lagoon.  The pool itself was pretty nice, but it was way too cold for swimming.  Some people had that idea and were down there already, but I was fine with just watching – nothing like walking back home for five hours with wet hair.  There’s one cool feature about this particular swimming spot in that it comes equipped with its own natural waterslide.  One of the ledges juts away from the waterfall and slopes out into the pool at such an angle that it becomes perfect for sliding down.  The rock has been worn down by the water over the last couple hundred years, so it’s basically smooth, too.  I managed to go a ways further upstream for a few more photo opportunities, but the trail became all but impassable after a short distance.  All I accomplished was some creative rock jumping and nearly sliding feet first into the river before having to turn back to the trail.

  


Trail on the way to Cleopatra's Pool



Area around Cleopatra's Pool, complete with water slide

As it turns out, that little centimeter on the map between Torrent and Anchorage is, in reality, fairly steep and winds all the way around the mountain.  It took me over an hour to get close to the ocean again, and I was practically dead on my feet by the time I got there.  Anchorage looked so nice and inviting after that ordeal that I, who hates sunbathing as a general rule and wear jeans 365 days a year, stripped right down to my swimsuit and collapsed on the beach for a good thirty minutes or so.  It was sort of nice and peaceful to just lie there and work through the remains of my food supply, but it was cut short when I looked to my right and saw this massive spider trying to crawl into my backpack.  Oh right, they like to hide in driftwood on the west coast.  After that, I couldn’t really relax, and the water was still just above freezing, so I gathered up my clothes and continued on.

  
Sunbathing on the beach at Anchorage Bay

It was kind of discouraging to look at the map and see the depressingly small amount of progress made in two and a half hours, and I knew that I had at least four hours of walking to go, so I didn’t waste any more time from that point on.  There were all sorts of signs leading off towards other cool spots like Cleopatra’s Pool, but I had to ignore them and stick to the main path.  I think that’s how people end up spending days in the bush – checking out all of those locations.  The path from Anchorage back to base was especially steep, too, so I was getting really tired.  For any of you thinking of doing this at some point, that little stretch between Anchorage and the next marker is definitely the worse.  After that, it’s all literally downhill. 

  

The trail on the way back to camp

Just at the steepest point of the trail, I took a moment to breathe and drink the last swallow of water I had when all of a sudden, a group of familiar figures emerged right in front of me.  My group of friends from Stray had managed to find me against all odds and suggested walking back to camp together.  That was just awesome.  Turns out that some of them had started out on the big party boat and gotten bored, and the rest of them had done the same thing as me, except that they had started later at Anchorage instead.  Point is, we all ended up at the same place at the same time, so it made the walk back much more enjoyable.  Natalie and Alec were the two that I ended up hanging out with the most, and they were just awesome.  Natalie is a quirky English girl from outside Manchester and Alec is a 40-something gay guy who manages to pull of the appalled silence that comes naturally to British art connoisseurs in any situation.  He was sort of the mascot of our bus, and Natalie was our morale officer.  I miss those guys now. 

Once you have someone to talk to, the time goes by a lot faster, and you don’t really notice how much further you have to hike.  Before I knew it, we were within range of The Barn, and it was just starting to fade into sunset.  I took a few last-minute photos for the road, grabbed a celebratory smoothie from the café, and then headed back to camp.   

That night, we made ourselves some more sausages and potatoes under the stars and enjoyed the sunset lighting.  There’s something very peaceful about being out in the wilderness, sitting around a giant camp fire, and just enjoying the atmosphere.  We were treated to some amazing constellations that night, too, because of the clear night and complete lack of light pollution.  I was able to recall my intensive astronomy lesson that I got in Napier and point out a few of the major southern hemisphere ones.  Eventually, we all retired to our tents, dorms, and cabins for another day on the road.  Most of the group had to be up and on the bus by 9am the next day, but I had to get up…earlier.  I’ll tell you guys why in the next post.  It involves the booking of another activity, though.  Hmm, fun times.  Until then!

Goodnight!

Climbing Mount Doom in New Zealand!

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. 

  
 
Walking around in the thermal springs

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.  

 
 
More pretty pictures 

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.

 
 
Mountains at sunrise.  Tongariro and Nguaruhoe on left, Ruapehu on right.

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 stretch 

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.

 
 
Continuing the climb up

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. 

  
 
Looking down at the Red Crater

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.

  
 
Bid Blue Lake and Emerald Lakes

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.   

  
 
Images of the way back down the other side

 
Random rainforest

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!