1 post tagged “volcanoes”
This weekend, a group of 10 of us pulled into the Plateau Lodge in National Park and got settled into the evening. We had met earlier in Taupo and had a beer at a lake side pub. The sun was still shining perfectly. This was when we met the others, the new people who we had not met yet, they seemed pretty animated and were good fun.
So we arrived, and settled in at the table for full on vegetarian pasta made by Jenny and David. Yum, after which we tucked into a nice cake that Catherine had brought with. We all went to bed early since the shuttle to Tongariro Crossing was leaving extra early at 6 am to get us out of the bad weather which would later approach. We woke up on time, surprisingly and everyone was ready, I felt like a snow goer since I had every type of protection on, snow jackets, seal fur (fake) jackets, thermal underwear, long sleeve tops, beanie, scarf, buff and whatever other warm thing I could think of.
Bags packed with loads of food, wouldn't want to be caught without something to eat otherwise two steps in and I would be starving. We started off as a group and then gradually we lost six people in the clouds and they left us behind to our own devices. Slow and steady and sometimes very unhappy and challenged, we slowly worked ourselves through the course. We walked up to the saddle, it started to get very windy, and we all had to put on out jackets that the previous stretch had striped from our bodies. There finally came a loo. A long drop, but do not dare to not use it as 11 km later or there abouts is the next one! The clouds started to come in over the top of the mountains and there was a fine mist dewing on our clothing. Then it turned to a soft irritating drizzle and that meant that when we got to the awesome stuff it was, well lets say, white and puffy and well cloudy, and we saw nothing. We missed the red crater, well we saw where it was but not what it looked like, we found the three emerald lakes and completely missed the blue lake, because that was covered too, by cloud.
We stopped for a lunch of hot dogs and lollies, and ate under a rock while people passed us by and this is when we realised we'd missed the blue lake completely!
We trudged along, all the while the toilets being the primary motivator to get to the hut, finally, relieved, we went on to find some very murky volcanic water, stenching of sulphur. This was on private land and we weren't allowed off the track. Finally on the last stretch we got a txt message telling us that the others where at the hut and we thought they had climbed a mountain, and were now behind us. We tried to reschedule the shuttle so that they could catch it later.
We rushed throught the forest, where a river had stollen our footpath for a bit and then frustrated finally coming out of the end and we realised that the bus had left without us and poor old Erick had run to catch it only to be 2 minutes late for the bus. We sat in the rain, waiting for the others, waiting for the shuttle and finally it came. By this time I was very tired and not really able to move.
We hopped in the bus, went home and we took a really very welcome shower, and then promptly plomped onto the couch and didn't move. After a short nap, we went to the station restaurant and we had really good food while real trains would go by and the entire restaurant would vibrate. We ate the best steak I have ever eaten, since I was in desparate need of protein for the poor muscles, it was a sure winner. We went home, climbed into bed and woke up next morning and made pancakes, with limited tools and a warped pan.
We then hopped in the car and drove like banshees home to Auckland. We stopped for lunch for 30 minutes at the The Thirsty Weta. We couldn't really climb out of the car without looking like geriatrics!
We are back and we are stiff but it was worthwhile and I did it!
