Hey honey, take a walk on the wild side...

Our visit to Taupo was a brief one but when we woke after our ‘crazy night’ out at the festival, we agreed that despite the miserable weather,  we needed to visit Huka Falls. We walked along by the Waikato River, passing the hot springs where the young & brave donned their swimwear to sit  in hot steaming water,  their top half exposed to the wet & windy weather. Not my idea of fun. By the time we got to the falls the rain was heavy & our lightweight rain macs finally gave up pretending they were showerproof or anything proof. Our next destination was up in the mountains, so we needed something that was up to the challenge.  Our route skirted along the side of Lake Taupo and should have afforded us beautiful views but, as the rain continued & the clouds moved in, we could barely see anything. As we turned off the main highway, we pulled off the road to make some lunch at a spot that promised a scenic lookout, but all it actually offered was a wall of fog. We did what any self respecting Englishman would  & made a cup of tea and sat and looked at it anyway. It was only a short drive to Whakapapa. It describes itself as a village so I assumed that it would have a shop where we could buy new waterproof jackets. However we discovered all it consisted of was a bizarre looking chateau hotel, a tavern (bar), a caravan park  & a visitors centre. We were greatly relieved to find that the centre sold some equipment including waterproof jackets so purchased were made. We booked into the campsite & headed to the tavern where Mr L got his own back on my luge victories by beating me at pool three times. Shameful performance on my part. It was Mothers Day in the UK so in the evening our time it was a delight to get lovely messages & pics from H&A. I miss them so much.   M our son in law had told us about the Tongariro Alpine Crossing,  reputedly the best one day walk in NZ. That sounded like something Mr L & I could do I thought . The advice from the visitors centre was that its not for the faint hearted. Gulp. The weather report for the following day was grim so we decided to do a short walk, to test out our jackets & our legs. The trail was about 2hrs but branched off to a lake. We were feeling fine so decided to carry on further & ended up walking for 5hrs & over 17k. Some warm up walk! We felt pretty sore & the Alpine crossing the next day was in doubt, but an encouraging text from M said we would regret it if we didn't do it. He was probably right & we didn't want to let him down! We set our alarm for 6am. It seemed to go off seconds after we set it & poor Mr L barely slept. But we decided we were going to give it a go so boarded the bus that would transport us to the start. I was surprised by how many people were doing the walk – a continual stream of hikers or trampers as they call them in NZ, mostly young, a few much older than us, some seemed ill equipped (we saw several doing it in plimsoles!!) but as the sun rose, we were all aiming for the same goal – the end, only 19.4km away. The thing about this walk isn't the distance, it the terrain & the altitude, passing Mount Ngauruhoe & Mount Tongariro, skirting the red crater, the beautiful volcanic lakes & springs, the landscape changes so many times. At one point it felt like we were on the moon as we crossed a vast area in between the mountains where there was no vegetation at all but scattered with fallen rocks. On other parts of the walk we were in rain forest.. At times the ascent was so steep I struggled to breathe but we took it steady and gradually we made progress. The weather stayed dry and for the most part clear so we had spectacular views – ones we won't forget. The descent down a steep and narrow track of volcanic dust was a real challenge. There was no grip whatsoever – every step and your foot slid forward 6-10 inches & holding on  didn't really work as you ended up pulling each other. I found that pretty hard but Mr L kept making me laugh & got me through it. It took us 6hrs 40mins – definitely not a record but it didn't matter because we did it & we felt very pleased with ourselves & surprisingly refreshed, without too many aches & pains. Not surprisingly we slept for 12 hours.