We woke up to possibly our coldest morning yet, our teeth were shattering so we hid under the blanket for a while hoping it would get warmer. It didn't so after a while we got up and headed to the shower block, getting a nice long warm shower to increase our body temperature from near freezing to just above freezing. We then had our wheat Biscuits and got on the road driving to a near by walk. After parking up we headed along a nice walk leading through forests and marshland, to some great views of the tallest volcano in the National Park and then onwards to the biggest waterfall in the National Park. We then headed back to the car and drove up to the bottom of the ski lift to get closer views of the Tallest Volcano…… after getting our heads checked and realising it was still an active volcano we drove away quickly. When we got to the bottom we headed back to the town of Ohakune to get some more food supplies before we headed off north through the National Park. We stopped off one more time at a tourist information centre which told you all about the volcano's in the area before we walked up to a view point of Mt Ngaruhoe (Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings). We then headed on to a local campsite and cooked grub before relaxing for the evening.

The next day (Saturday 31st) we got up before the sun had even put its hat on, quickly got ready, grabbed a big breakfast. Then raced to a shuttle bus to take us to the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing walk, which is suppose to be the nicest 1 day walk in New Zealand. After getting off the bus and having a quick toilet stop we set off on the day walk that would take us through a volcanic landscape, passing right between 2 active volcanoes…..YES YOU READ RIGHT, ACTIVE. I would have been more sensible then to do it but unfortunately Rachel really wanted to do it and I had promised her parents I would look after her, foolish promise. So after bandaging Rachel's ankle up, which was still bruised and cut from where she had got excited a few days ago seeing the dolphins and dived in the sea smacking it on the metal steps, we headed off together up the volcanic.

We walked for around an hour and a half and came to the 'Soda Springs', which were an impressive waterfall, leaving Rachel queuing for the toilet here I headed in for a closer look, before turning back and meeting her further along down the danger zone. We then started to climb what's called the Devil's Staircase into the mist……yep into the mist, we were walking in the volcanic danger zone and couldn't even see anything, so if the volcano erupted we wouldn't even have the pleasure of seeing the eruption before being melted by the lava. After another hour and a bit hike upwards we reached the turn off point to Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom from Lord Of The Rings). This was the closest you could get to it without taking the long detour to the summit, thankfully Rachel didn't force me to do this. We had a short break here to take in the amazing views of the volcano……it was a shame that those views only consisted of about 4 meters higher than where we were, due to the thick mist we couldn't even see the summit.

After our short break we continued on through the misty volcanic landscape, hoping that the group of people in front of us were heading the right way and they hadn't got lost in the mist like us. We walked through a flat crater then at the end had a short climb and looked out over the edge into the mist. Apparently this was the point where we should have been able to see Red Crater. The Red Crater is very impressive, since finishing the walk I have seen many photo's of it, and have compared all my misty photo's to them and can work out where about I was standing, amazing. After this we ascended the most difficult point and round the Red Crater Ridge, taking in more amazing views of mist. Apparently this is very dangerous as there's steep falls both sides…… would have been really nice to have been able to see these. After this we slid down an ash sloop, towards the Emerald lakes, FINALLY the mist started to lift a bit and we got to see the Emerald Lakes. We reached the bottom of the slope and then had a look round the 2 lakes before having some lunch.

After lunch we headed onwards along a flat bit, before ascending a bit then turning left, after walking along for around half an hour through the mist which had dropped down again we turned to the side and as the mist lifted a bit we realised we had been walking alongside Blue Lake, which through the mist didn't look very blue. After Another hour or so we started descending to the Ketetahi hut, where we enjoyed our banana to get some energy for the rest of the walk and look over to an area of the mountain which had hot springs and was steaming. Finally an impressive sight with no mist. We continued downwards and got to a rainforest, which we had an hour walking through before getting to the car park and checking onto our shuttle bus. We didn't have to wait too long before we were off and back at our car. Since the mist had lifted we decided to drive back to the start point to get some great photo's of the main volcano (Mt Ngauruhoe). We then headed northward and stopped of at a place called Turangi, where we relaxed for the evening having a tasty vegetable stew.