Tongariro Crossing and Bridge to Nowhere

Hey there strangers,

it has been a while. Time flies when you are having fun or just incredibly busy at work in this case. We will try to catch you up with what we have been up to for the last few weekends.

Dec. 14th - 16th

We had ourselves one hell of a good weekend. Friday night was the clinic’s Christmas Party for all of the clients. Roberta and I were the bartenders for the night which was entertaining at times. Also our English friends, Cal and Jimmy, came up from Wellington. 

We got up with the sun on Saturday morning, so we could get an early start on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. 

We had been talking about doing this hike for months now. It is a 19 km hike that goes between Mount Ngaruhoe and Mount Tongariro and is said to be the best one day hike in New Zealand, so we were pretty pumped. We drove to the end of the hike to drop off a vehicle to find the parking lot was baracaded off saying that it was closed due to volcanic activity. We knew that the trail was open though, so we just left our vehicle on the side of the road. Once we got to the start of the track, we found out that the trail was open to a certain point, but then we had to turn around and go back to the start because of the small eruption a few weeks back. Guess we should have looked into that. 

 Cal Reading A Nice Little Confidence Booster - Ha

Mount Doom aka Mount Ngaruhoe before we started our ascent.

We could not have asked for a better day and the views were just spectacular.  The best of all being on top of Mount Ngaruhoe. That part was a side hike and proved to be quite testing. For every two steps we took, one was lost one sliding back on the scree. It made for a quick decent though basically scree skiing down the mountain. 

Doesn't look like much, but it was quite steep and loose.

 At the top of Mount Doom with views in all directions! Sweet As!

 Mount Doom's Crater

 Roberta after sliding down the snow. Quite gracefully I might add. Ha

 Cal and Jimmy with their graceful slides. Ha

Scree Skiing

After climbing Mount Doom, we continued on the trek towards Red Crater and Emerald Lakes. Our legs were a bit like jello after the big climb and we had to take more breaks than we did before. The path was blocked between Emerald Lakes and Blue Lake, so once we got to this point we turned around and went back. 

 Central Crater with Mount Doom in background

 Blue and Emerald Lakes

 Red Crater

A good cool off spot.

It was nearly dinner time when we got back to the car. After picking up our van from the other side, we went home for a few drinks and some tea (aka supper.) Kiwis call supper tea which was confusing the first few times we had heard that. Our beds never felt better than they did that night.

After a big rest, Roberta, Jimmy, Cal, and I headed off to Pipiriki which was about an hours drive south and west from Owhango. It is located right near Whanganui National Park and was our jet boat outlet to the Bridge to Nowhere. 

The jet boat ride was about hour upstream the Whanganui River. We had many stops along the way to educate us about the history of the river and the history of the Maori people on the river. We then got off the boat and hiked 45 mins over to the Bridge to Nowhere.

The government of New Zealand wanted to develop the area for farming after the First World War. The bridge was built across the deep Mangapurua gorge to provide access to the area. The intention was to build roads to it later, but the area was too remote and unsuitable for farming that the venture failed and the farms reverted to native bush. We stopped at the bridge for some lunch and a history lesson and then hiked back to the jet boat. The driver did some 360's in the boat on the way back which resulted in me having ringing ears from Roberta’s screams. Ha. 

About half the way back to Pipiriki, we were dropped off to canoe the rest of the way. Jimmy and Cal had to get back to Wellington, so they continued back on the jet boat but a few other couples were also canoeing back. It was a nice peaceful ride downstream. 

There were a few rapids to navigate through and we made it through them all without having to go for a swim. The one rapid was called the 50/50 rapids(50% of canoes flip and 50% get through) so it was nice to get through that one. We left the other groups in the dust as they had not canoed very much and we were going as slow as we could. We stopped and got out at a cave with a waterfall within it along the river. Supposedly there were big eels in the water in the cave but we did not see any. 

We made it back in about 2 hours and then headed back home. Another busy weekend in the books.

Taupo

Another weekend, another trip. The weather here in the central North Island has been great the last bit. It seems weird that it is the end of November and it keeps getting warmer. Most days it's mid 20s but with the thin ozone around these parts, you can really feel the sun.

This past weekend, we ventured off to Taupo which is located on the north shore of Lake Taupo.

Normally it's only about an hour's drive from our base, Taumarunui. On Saturday morning, it took us a couple of hours though as the Lake Taupo Bike Challenge was on. This is an annual bike race around the lake for a total of 160 kms. There was between 8000-10 000 riders in different categories, so to say there was a few bikes on the road would be an understatement.

Taupo was the starting and finishing point of the race, so the town was a booming.
Once we made it to town, we headed north to a lookout of the town and to Huka Falls.

The falls themselves are only about 11 meters high, but the brilliant blue colored water and large amount of water coming over make them a beautiful sight. Roberta was rushing me the whole time as she wanted to see Aratitia rapids. There are many dams on the river and at 2 o'clock they open them at Aratitia. It goes from a dry river bed to one flowing like it used to. After rushing there, we found out that they were doing maintenance and the gates were open all day. Roberta was a little bummed out about that. There were still some great views of the river.

All wasn't lost though, we got there just as a river boat cruise was leaving and so we hoped on for the ride. It was nice and peaceful and the boat driver was quite informative.

I was surprised at how close we came to the falls.

We stopped on the side of the river once to check out some hot pools but the river level was just a little too high so cold water was flowing through them.. You could really feel the heat when you dug your feet into the sand.

We had worked up an appetite so we grabbed a couple of big burgers from Burger Fuel. They lived up to their good name as they were delish. We then headed out to Spa Park and floated around in a hot pool that is right on the river. A Dutch guy told us about a free campground we should stay at for the night. Imagine that?! A Dutchman knew where to get some freebies. Haha. It was actually quite a nice place as well snuggled beside the river.

After a short stop at the Huka Honey Hut Sunday morning, we headed out to go kayaking on the lake. Our guide was the Dutch guy that had told us about the free campground. It was a beautiful, calm day on the water. we couldn't have asked for a better day. We were in a two person kayak and our guide warned us that they had the nickname of "the divorce boat". Ha. We soon got the hang of things and were able to keep in synch.

The views were spectacular. We headed over to the Maori rock carvings. They were just carved in the rock around 30 years ago. They are only accessable by boat which was kind of cool. Our guide told us the stories behind each of the carvings and about the artists who had carved them.

After admiring the carvings for a bit, we headed to shore to have a bit of a snack. Roberta and I took that opportunity to jump into the lake. It was quite chilly.

After a quick bite, we headed back to where we started. We couldn't have times it better as we got back the winds started to blow.

After our great kayak trip, we were a little famished so we had a BBQ by the lake.

Roberta then convinced me to head to Debrett's Thermal Spa to soak in the hot mineral water. I definitely didn't regret that decision. There was also a water slide at the place that was surprisingly quite fast and fun. Roberta did her usual scream like a little girl as she headed down a few times.

After a few hours there, it was time to head back to base again.

Over and Out.

P.S. Volcano Update - They still think that Ruapehu might erupt in the next couple of weeks, but the size of the eruption can not really be predicted. The unpredictability of these things was evident last week when Tongariro "erupted" without the scientists recording any changes. It wasn't much of an eruption just more steam than usual and some ash.