I'M AT: The Park Hostel, National Park. Spa, hotel-like rooms, log fires, catering-standard kitchen, big TV showing the Ashes.
After two weeks of constant rain and freezing temperatures at Tongariro National Park, we were prepared for the worst, and the news arrived just as the bus pulled into town. Grey skies, mist, hail. The Crossing was off.
Firstly, a bit of background. The Tongariro Crossing is the most popular one-day hike in New Zealand. It traverses the high slopes of two volcanoes, Ruapehu and Tongariro, and on a clear day you can see for many miles, across the North Island's High Plateau.
It's also pretty pointless, even a little dangerous, to attempt during the wet. So, having decided to pitch up here for three days in the hope of seeing clear weather, my heart sank, and for the first day I did nothing more than drink beer, watch the cricket, go to the pub, watch more cricket, and give a tiny kiss to a hairy, toothless lady simply because she wouldn't leave me alone. I also managed to slap a bearded bloke round both cheeks on leaving.
So it was with a Speights-inspired hangover that I woke to sunshine, and blue skies, and a knock from the hostel guy - the Crossing was ON. This doubtless pissed off the rest of the bus crew, who had only one chance to do it, and were leaving within the hour.
So, up a trudge, quite steep and puffless, to the Red Crater, a deep-hued splash of crimson. The Crossing goes through a massive variety of landscapes, and the walk the ridge is pretty tough - up scree and rocks, unceasingly up. But when you're there you're almost level with the clouds in the far distance, and the light wind blows dust into spectral shapes that jig across the floor.
Raupehu is apparently famous as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings, but I haven't seen the film. So to me it was just a stunning mound of black. Around this point in the walk, the ridge crumbles downwards towards three Emerald Lakes, and the earth all around belches with sulphur. I like descending on this kind of terrain, so I bolted down it like I was on crack.
The walk kind of pans out from here, or levels out, at least. It takes you round the corner of the volcano, which is shrubby, the path descends very gradually so you can wince at the beauty of Lake Taupo before you, and just shake your head, and take another picture. After a stop for water and chorizo at one of the DOC huts, we carried on down, through forest wet with moss, until we reached the end, about six hours after the start. The thermals sat, thankfully unused, in my muleta.
It was here that I decided that New Zealand must be so gushing with wealth that no-one can be bothered to drive a small ice cream van to the end of the trail and just coin it, big time. Sun plus exhausted but monied walkers plus thirst equals a killing. But no jingles were heard. In Bolivia, there'd be storms of women in black hats pushing aguaitas and empanadas at you as far as the eye could focus.
But anyway. With socks off, in shade from the blaze, we sat down and chuckled at our luck, me, Christian, der Rammstein and Dortmund fan, and Hazel, a game old bird from Blighty. The only downer was that I lost my camera a few days later, and with it all the photos of a great day. But it's not a big price to pay for good weather, and it was absolutely bucketing it down the next day.
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