Wow - I can't believe it is May already!

A random fact especially for you Olly - In New Zealand Woolworths is a very successful Supermarket! :P

The weather yesterday was lovely so a went for a really nice hour long run around Lake Taupo, the scenery yet again was stunning but I was pretty shattered when I got back! Went to reception to find that after 5 days of waiting the weather is good enough and the Tongariro Crossing is on tomorrow! Nice early start for that my alarm was set for 5.45am! Waiting for the bus to arrive at 6.15am it was still dark and VERY cold! Took about an hour and a half to drive to the Mangatepopo carpark - the start of the crossing. The kiwi woman driving the bus had way tooo much energy for so early in the morning!

So it was time to start the 19.4km walk that was predicted to take 7-8hours. I was walking with 3 other girls who I had met at the hostel. The first part was pretty pleasant with only a little bit of scrambling around rocks and some gentle striding along duck boards. The description of the next section of the walk didn't fill me with heaps of enthusiasm! - "The Devils Staircase" as we carried on walking LOTS of steps came into view and although they were quite cunnignly comoflauged in the side of the mountain, because there was a fair amount of people ahead of us you could seem them dotted on stpes ALL the way to the top! After about 45 minutes of walking up steps I was starting to serioulsy regret having gone for a run yesterday - my calves had totally siezed up and my legs were complianing! At the top of the Devils Staircase we were at the base of Mt. Doom but because of the weather and the fact that we are entering N.Z. winter we had been advised against climbing to the summit. After all those steps we still weren't quite at the summit to Mt.Tongariro 0 we had one last steep climb - we refuelled on Chocolate before carrying on! At the top we were at 1900m and totally above cloud so unfortunaltely couldn't see much! It was only 11am but because we had been up since 5.45 and walking hard we sat down for lunch - at this point I got a huge craving from hot ribena and wheatbix cake!!!!!! From here it was prett much all down hill - the first bit was slipping and sliding dwon loose volcanic rock - very hard work, but it lef to two absolutely stunning blue lakes they were such an amazing colour! From here to the end the walking was pretty easy with some fabulous views out over the whole of the national park some of the cloud had cleared and walking down the side of Mt. Tongariro I could see for miles. Arrived at Ketetaki car park at 2.20pm 0 6hrs 10minutes after starting - by this point my feet were very happy for me to sit down! Getting off the bus back at the hostel my legs had already siezed up - walking tomorrow could be a tad interesting!!!!