There was a kinda of nervous excitement as we waited in Crash Palace on Tuesday afternoon to get picked up by the next Stray bus and to meet our chums for the next few days/weeks!

Our new driver, 'The Hoff' seemed a pretty cool guy and had a big brand spanking new coach too!

We paid brief visits to Wai-o-Tapo Thermal Wonderland (more hot water and eggy smells!) and then to the Huka falls, where the fast flowing water was a cool deep turquoise colour (much to Hutch's delight) and then arrived at our really nice Urban Retreat hostel by Lake Taupo - the world's largest crater lake!

Taupo had a nice feel to it but we were focussed on both getting a pair of suitable trousers for the hike the next day and so we spent the next 2 hours frantically going in pretty much every shop Taupo had to offer before they closed. Eventually we struck gold (well, silver at least) and were pretty pleased with the afternoons work, made even better when I won $50 in the bus sweepstake on the Sydney Challenge horserace! Not bad for 'Sunday Jonny' as the Hoff referred to me as!

Another visit to Pak n Save for a long list of supplies needed for the crossing on Wednesday later, we tapped into the cheap chilli and free Internet at the hostel and then headed to bed to squeeze in as much sleep as poss!

A 6am alarm clock on Wednesday morning made me feel like I was back at home on a workday, but by the time we started walking at around 10am on the Tongariro Crossings - rated as the best 1 day walk IN THE WORLD - and was chowing into 3 sandwiches each at an amazing lunch spot surrounded by snow capped volcanoes and turquoise lakes, it's fair to say it felt pretty different to a day at work!

Some of the scenery as we walked up Devils Staircase and then continued on up the steep slopes to the red crater and our lunch spot was gorgeous, and at one point we seemed to be totally surrounded by volcanic peaks.

It was a bit wierd how within an hour we went from blazing sun to walking through 2 foot deep snow as we walked to the summit of the crossing, up in to the clouds which by this time were closing in.

We then had to descend about 300m down the snow covered mountainside, and I started off trying out an improvised snow plough stance which worked for a while and got me so far down, although it also got me in a little bit of trouble for leaving Hutch half way up! Reunited, we soon ended up on our arses flying down and finding it pretty hard to stop!! It was such good and unexpected fun, even if by the time we stood up at the bottom our feet ad bum were soaking wet and we had half the mountain down our trousers!!

The walk back from that point was pretty tough going as we were tired ad starting to ache - not ideal for negotiating the steep, rocky old lava flows back down! (it's not called the Devil's Staircase for no reason) There was a particular low point towards the end when we reached what we had thought for the past half hour was the start/finish hut, only for the sign when we got there to tell us that we actually had another 25 minutes to go! Cue some heavy nibbling on the awesome scroggin mix!!

We eventually made it back and sat on the coach with a beer, having walked over 20km in 7 and a half hours with some 'off track' thrown in for good measure, we felt good but shattered!!

The fact that we had the best hostel in NZ to stay in helped with the aching limbs a bit and we had a dreamboat when we got not only a free upgrade to a loft room, but then had it all to ourselves!! Needless to say we slept well!!