February 1, 2001 Thursday - Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand
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| Trailhead at Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand |
We got up VERY early today for our Tongariro Crossing hike. Busloads and busloads of hikers were dropped off and I could see a line of more than 100 hikers walked toward our final destination 5 hours away.
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| Me, Nick, and Patrick at top of a mount - Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand |
The climb was OK for the first mile or two until we started going up a very steep hill where people stopped quite often for breaks. Looking down on the few miles we hiked, I could still see hikers swarming toward us slowly. At the top of the summit, we started heading across a great flat area known as the South Crater. It was fairly flat and desolate and it started to get colder.
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| Red Crater at Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand |
We saw a girl hiking in her Tevas and I would definitely recommend people hike in something with more protection than that. We hiked up again and it was starting to make my leg muscles very sore. We finally got to the top of the Red Crater at 1886m, where it was shrouded by a blanket of fog. The grounds around the crater was quite warm and I took advantage of it by staying close to the ground.
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| Emerald Pools at Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand |
We hiked down after that through loose sand and rocks along a steep hill that over looks Emerald Lakes. The lakes shimmered in the sun in its unnatural cyan color far below, which looked very surreal. By the time we had already passed more than 100 hikers but there were still some ahead of us.
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| Me, Patrick and Nick again - Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand |
After our descend, we stopped at Blue Lake to have our lunch before getting back up again and head to Ketetahi Hut. The trail wound through alpine country with mountain grass and flowers covering the volcanic rocks. There were some vents shooting some steam near the hut. We didn't stay too long and kept on hiking through a wide expanse of alpine grass.
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| View of the valley below - Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand |
The path continued to descend low into a cold rainforest where small and giant ferns clung to each other and tall trees casting a green shadowy hue through the path. I took my time and let Patrick and Nick hike ahead and enjoyed the rainforest. I met up with Tomas and his friend who I met up in Paihia again in the forest. We hiked together for a while before I stayed back again to take my time.
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| Rainforest track to the end of the day hike - Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand |
I finally came out to a clearing to many hikers resting on grass and they were pretty much zonked out. I waited with Patrick and Nick for a while before my bus showed up and I went in and headed back first. Patrick and Nick joined me later and again, Patrick promised to cook his Tuna Surprise but we couldn't find a pot to cook the pasta so we went to Burger King instead.
Patrick's been promising us his Tuna Surprise since Rotorua but he's been using the backpacker mantra of "there's always tomorrow" to put off on the cooking.
We sat around and played cars after dinner and we found another guy who checked in our dorm. His name was Liron and he's form Israel. He warned us to stay away from Israelis because he's ashamed of his fellow countrymen. He told me they are usually trouble and they're rude and can't be trusted. I thought it was quite intriguing and weird to hear how somebody can hate their own people so much.
We played Shit Head after that and Liron was constantly grinning. He thinks people outside of Israel are so nice. After playing for a while, a drunken Maroi walked by with a bag of beer and wanted to play cards with us. He stood around and started handing out beers and giving everyone hugs. We quickly finished our game and feint our desire for sleep and went back inside. He eventually left and we pretty much just wrapped up for the night.
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