tongariro tramping

Natalie, Christina and I decided to do the 18-km Tongariro Crossing hike despite (or, in my case, because of) the warnings of the guide that it would be a grueling one. When Sabrina, Lucy and I were on our road trip down to Wellington, we drove up the mountain roads near the park, but it was in the dark so we had to make do with a photo in front of a poster of the park at our hostel. This time, we went for the real thing.

The first half of the walk – the uphill part – wasn’t too bad. At the top, we had a great view of the Emerald Pools (photo – note all the teeny tiny people by the pools, and you might get an idea of how steep parts of the trail were!), which we enjoyed for a few minutes until we discovered there was no good way to get down. We had to half run and half slide down the steepest part of the mountain. After that, we trekked through some snow while sweating in shorts and t-shirts, then pulled out our extra layers when we got soaked with cold rain a few kilometers later.

Then…about 5K of gradual downhill track, just steep enough to really screw with our knees. We realized halfway through this section that we’d misestimated the distance left, and had to really book it in order to get back before the bus left us there. We arrived just as it was pulling away – good thing, since the only place we had cell reception was up at the peak and no one wanted to run back up there!

Sabrina did a short sightseeing flight over the crossing, and looked for us while her pilot told her how crazy we were to walk instead of fly.

We’re staying at an awesome brand-new hostel which was built as ski staff lodging. The main building has, appropriately enough, a cozy alpine ski lodge feel to it, and a big flat-screen TV which is currently being used to show off all the Stray skydiving DVDs.