Reading back on my notes from the journey to Taupo I appear to have literally written a stream of consciousness in my notepad which I will attempt to make sense of for you. On route to the town we passed through Bulls, a town which is very proud of its name and likes to replace parts of other words with the word bull. For example, outside the police station: consta-bull. There was also replacea-bull for a car parts shop. Plus many others, some that worked and many that didn't but hey it's good to have town pride. After that it was through Taihape, the gumboot (read: welly) capital of New Zealand. The story behind this is something to do with a wife throwing a welly at her husband's head for some reason and basically creating a new game, now there are international championships and everything. Not sure it can beat welly wanging in Stanbury Park myself!

The road to Taupo runs through army land, although what they want with brown grassed tussocky plains is beyond me; this land is only inhabited by wild horses which is pretty cool. Rain was dusting the windscreen as we passed through the plains, making a grey landscape that wasn't much to write about, although I suppose it was pretty interesting to see the Southern hemisphere's largest managed tree plantation. Rows and rows of uniform pine trees, only exceeded by one in Russia, New Zealand is really big on being green, and not only because it is nuclear free. Rather depressingly we were heading straight for some bruised clouds that were hugging the horizon - I wasn't hopeful for the weather further down the road.

The Taupo region is one of the 9 most active geothermal regions in the world. This means it has an abundance of geysers, hot pools, mud pools, volcanoes, earthquakes and suchlike. A week or so before my arrival Mount Tongariro erupted, prompting a concerned text off mum asking if I was covered in ash, so I was hoping there wouldn't be a repeat of Dante's peak whilst I was staying there. Taupo in particular is big for trout fishing, there were indeed countless statues and images on signs showing the fish splashing about and plenty of men stood around in waders in the rivers we passed.

A good hour or so was spent driving around Lake Taupo to get to the town proper - but then it is New Zealand's largest lake, covering an area bigger than Singapore, with a surface area of 616 square kilometres and a perimeter of 193 km. Pretty big! Now I didn't realise until I arrived but Lake Taupo is actually the crater of a, currently dormant, massive volcano of which an eruption in around 186AD turned the sky red over Rome and China according to records of the time. All in all if you're paranoid about natural disasters as I am it's a pretty nervy place to be. Our last stop before the hostel was the Huka falls, a waterfall with a short drop but nevertheless not somewhere I'd like to fall into. It is part of the Waikato River, New Zealand's longest, and as such a high volume of water is being forced through a narrow gap the pure power thundering over the edge created a vortex of swirling aquamarine foam that would drag you under never to be seen again. Eeeek! Luckily the clouds threatening the horizon earlier had disappeared, allowing the afternoon to be spent wandering over to a hot stream with two other girls from the bus, Sam and Sarah, and soothing our feet in the bizarrely warm water.

Taupo is situated about an hour from the Tongariro National Park, home to Mounts Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe, aka Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings - instantly recognizable with its cone shaped summit. I initially planned to do the Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand's best one day trek, but the eruption 10 days ago put paid to those plans as it continues to belch out steam and ash from its side and the Department of Conservation has closed the walk for safety reasons. I was pretty upset about it but there is nothing that you can do against that kind of natural force! Instead I signed up for the Mount Ruapehu crater lake walk, a climb up New Zealand's largest active volcano, and one of the most active volcanoes in the world. In recent memory it erupted in 1995-6, 2006 and 2007, but they aren't necessarily the huge eruptions you see on TV, at least not yet. Mount Ruapehu rises 2,797m from the Earth, the highest point in the North Island, has New Zealand's largest ski fields on its slopes, the North Islands only glaciers, and the highest café in the country. A lot of firsts for one area!

Anyway, it was a 6am pick up from the hostel, the stars were still out twinkling away and the fire in the office of the trekking company was a welcome respite from the pre-dawn chill. Not having walking boots of my own suitable for the snowy hike I was duly given a pair by Salty, the driver for the day, as well as numerous waterproof garments, suggesting a damp day ahead. It was an hours drive over to the Tongariro national park so the majority of the other passengers fell asleep whilst I prattled on about everything and nothing to the driver. It was a cloudy morning and that, combined with the excretions from the still bubbling Mount Tongariro, obscured the top of Mount Nguaruhoe, to my disappointment as it would have been nice to see Mount Doom in all its glory!

We arrived at the car park for the Whakapapa ski fields where my favourite item of clothing for the day, gaiters, was passed out. Now I never really understood the point of gaiters - why only keep the bottom of your legs dry? - but, despite being potentially the worst fashion disaster ever, they proved invaluable keeping my ankles dry through the day, and I particularly loved the stirrups on the bottom. My second favourite item of the day was my potentially dangerous weapon - the ice axe! All togged up, hoping no one had murderous tendencies, and ready to go we were offered the choice of getting the chairlift up to the café, where the walk proper began. Foolhardily I decided to do the full walk, stuff the easy option! In the wise words of Ron Burgundy 'I immediately regret this decision'.

The start of the walk was through the ski-fields, just inviting someone to be knocked down by a passing skier or boarder at any moment. After about 10 minutes 2 people went back down to take the chairlift and wait for us to arrive at the café in an hour and a half - it didn't bode well! Half an hour of trudging - being the operative word - later we stopped and our guide, Katherine, warned us that from here onto the café we could not go back to the chairlift so it was our final call. A quick aside about Katherine - the woman was a machine! She marched us up that mountain like a demon horde was after us and didn't even seem out of breath, regardless of the big backpack she was having to carry as well. Mental. To continue, everyone thought they'd be able to make from here on out so we continued up the field, sticking to the edges of the slopes, crossing run areas in straight lines to take up less space, and generally trying to be inconspicuous - very difficult when people in the chairlifts above you are shouting that there are easier ways up the hill!

Once at the café we had a ten minute break before hitting the main bulk of the climb, which I was nervous about as the first 90 minutes hadn't exactly been a walk in the park. The weather was so beautiful though, cornflower blue skies with tiny little cotton wool clouds, and I had paid to do the whole thing, so I gathered up my bag and ice axe and off we went once more. This part of the walk continued onto more advanced slopes so the skiers and snowboarders were flying past us at a rate of knots, and as we had to walk around a few blind corners it got a bit hairy at times. Eventually we got off the slopes and the nice groomed snow and into the proper climb to the crater. Now if I thought it was difficult walking on the harder snow of the slopes it was nothing compared to the off-piste snow which you sunk into up to your shins. Hence why the gaiters were so useful, don't think I would have appreciated a bootful of snow!

Half an hour or so into the final ascent my hips started hurting, which is what always happens on long walks so I don't know why I thought this would be different. Lifting my feet and placing them into each deep foothole was becoming a definite struggle, and I couldn't help but think if I'd have done this walk at the beginning of my travels when I at least had a modicum of fitness it would have been a lot easier! With Tom, the other guide, at my heels and encouraging me on I continued to grit my teeth and toil up the mountain, about ten metres behind the rest of the group, with the exception of an American guy who was suffering from an apparently epic hangover and made me worry he was going to vomit all over the snow. Why you would do that to yourself I just don't know! By this point sheer stubbornness and pride were the only things keeping me going since I actually thought my legs were going to detach from my hips such was the pain. Well, that, singing Eye of the Tiger with Tom and the boost bar in my bag! I don't know if any of you have ever walked for a long period of time in deep snow but it saps your strength really quickly as you have to lift your feet a lot higher than is natural so is basically like climbing a massive flight of stairs. For 4 hours. With about 15 minutes to the top and the view over the crater lake I was wondering why I had paid someone to inflict this torture on me.

Now it's all over I can tell you why I paid good money for the experience - the views from the top were spectacular. You walk over a ridge into a slight depression and at the bottom lies a crater lake, slightly steaming since it is heated by the volcano, and a cloudy cerulean colour that contrasts with the pure white of the snow-capped peaks rising around it. I'm not sure if I've ever been to such a relaxing place. Ham and cheese sandwiches definitely taste better in such surroundings. The lake itself is actually the crater of the volcano which fills up between eruptions - it's easy to get paranoid about impending explosions when another volcano is still bubbling away nearby! Out of the 14 of us who started the trek only 9 made it to the peak - 3 people from Hong Kong only got about 2 thirds of the way up, but then it was their first time on snow so I'm not really sure what they expected! Another two Asian women got about halfway and gave in, but did get the pleasant diversion of sitting with a hot chocolate in the café waiting for us to return.

Whilst we were up there enjoying our lunch we saw some snowboarders on a distant peak, evidently thinking of taking it on. This peak looked pretty sheer from where I was sitting and was most definitely off the beaten track, they must have walked a fair way to get up to it. Well one set off down and came to an abrupt halt as he stared over the edge of what looked like a dangerous precipice to me. After about 5 minutes in which I imagined him having an accident in his pants he scooted round said obstacle and whooshed down the snow, carving a line down the untouched surface. His friend was quickly following but came into a bit of trouble, setting off a small avalanche which chased him down the slope until he outran it and steered off to a safe area. It was pretty exciting and I can only imagine the adrenaline levels those guys had!

Once we had watched these daredevils at work it was time to set off back down the mountain. This was a hell of a lot easier than being marched up it by Sergeant Major Katherine and we even got to do a bit of sledging down on our backsides using the ice axe as a brake - hilarity obviously followed as most people struggled to control their brake and nearly went whooshing down the slope at high speed. Whilst we had been at the top the weather had come in and we were slipping and sliding down the slopes in near zero visibility due to the cloud cover, it's a miracle nobody collided with the aforementioned speedy skiers. I did manage to get a mild injury wrenching my knee when I stepped into a pile of snow that was a lot deeper than anticipated but nothing lasting it doesn't seem. It's not possible for me to do activities and at least inflict minor damage on myself!

Back at New Zealand's highest café we had a brief respite from the cold weather before getting on the chair lifts to get back down to the car park. I've never been on a chairlift going down before and it is way scarier than uphill, you feel as if you could just slip right out down the mountainside. At least it gave me some nice views of the other mountain ranges. Whilst waiting to change buses at the company office I experienced the perfect end to the day. There were some showers at the foot of the mountains and a massive rainbow framed Mount Ngauruhoe, whose cone shaped peak could be seen now the cloud had finally cleared. It was truly beautiful, nature can be OK sometimes I suppose! As if to rub it in there was also the best sunset I've seen on the drive back into Taupo, bright fuchsia cloud over the lake blending up to burnt oranges, crimson flashes, violet rainclouds overhead and fading into that sleepy blue you see right at the end of the day. It's difficult to describe but it will stay with me as the best sunset yet.

Back at the hostel after a well deserved hot shower I realized that when I had put suncream on my face I had missed about half a centimeter of skin at my hairline, cue a nice red line at the top of my forehead. I suppose you can't have everything after such an amazing day.

Becca