FIRST WELLINGTON - THEN BERLIN: November 2006

The Tongariro Crossing has been described as one of New Zealand's best one-day treks. It is a spectacular one-day trek across New Zealand's Tongariro National Park World Heritage Area. The trek begins at Mangatepopo in the west and ends at Ketetahi on the northern edge of the Park.

The Tongariro Crossing starts as a gentle gradient up the Mangatepopo Valley to a steep climb to the saddle between the active Volcanoes of Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe, across South Crater and finally climbing up to Red Crater, the highest point (1886m) on the track. Then descending down to the Emerald Lakes (a group of water filled explosion craters), over Central Crater to the Blue Lake (an old vent) sidling around North Crater past the Ketetahi Hut and the Ketetahi Hot Springs down through the native forest to the car park.

Cora's email this morning ....first the bad news aye....
I think I have killed the cellphone on the tongariro crossing. They told us to make sure we bring one so I decided to take us for emergencies. the weather was supposed to be really fine but apparently the weather forecast was wrong, tongariro expeditions even told us where to send our complaints.

After a beautiful sunrise and the first two hours in sunshine, the weather turned into absolute crap and it was too late to turn around as we had already climbed the "devil's staircase" and they had told us it would be too difficult to get down from this point. Just saying that I had tried to package the phone waterproof but actually even the last one of my five layers was completely wet when we came down and so I don't know whether the phone just got too cold or whether it died from the rain. I'll take it to a shop in Taupo today and see whether they can fix it, and if not, i'll replace it or I'll leave you mine. I'm sorry.....

So that was that - the crossing itself was quite disappointing as the fog was so extreme that it was even hard sometimes to find the next marker stick which showed us the way. and of course we didn't see any of the "sights", only the emerald lakes but the wind was so strong that we tried to get down as soon as possible from that point as well.

When we finally arrived at Ketetahi Hut it was so full with frozen backpackers that we didn't really stay and I just got out of my wet jeans and decided to wear hotpants for the rest of the track that was still better than long trousers. some of the guys seemed to think that was really funny :)

well after all we managed to get down and tackled the whole crossing in 6 hours instead of 9. that was probably beacuse we didn't even have any of our lunch as it was just too cold to stop walking.

the rest of the day was good, we basically spent it in the spa pool of the hostel and had an early night. over all, I found it quite challenging and I was pretty scared in some parts but it's still a good experience....:) sorry again about the cellphone, i hope you're all fine, say hello to josh and fay and have a gr8 day lovya cora