Got to Waitomo in the late afternoon, it's pretty much a hostel in the middle of nowhere. We had to split into two though as they didn't have four rooms. Nicest rooms we've had so far though! A twin room, ensuite, nice balcony! Was really good. Didn't do much in the evening as we were all pretty tired. The next morning though Tom and Steve did the Black Abyss cave rafting/climbing and Ben and I did the Ruakura Cave tour, 65m under the surface! Was really dark but saw things like gloworms and cave formations which was pretty interesting. At one point the lights were turned out so it was literally pitch black, did some bumping into some old ladies by accident.

We then left Waitomo to head for Taupo. We got there in the afternoon and booked our Tongariro Crossing for the next day. Unfortunately Steve still wasn't feeling too good so he didn't do the crossing...it was such a good day though.

The day started at 5.30am, ready to get picked up at 6.20am by the bus, and the past few days have been a bit cloudy in Taupo, but today it was clear as anythin! No clouds in the sky at all. We got to the Park at about 8ish, and borrowed some walking boots (for free!) from the bus as only one of us (ben) had walking boots (and it was only myself, Ben and Tom as Steve has tonsilitis which is a bit rubbish!). We also bought some gloves and a hat from the bus as weren't aware that at the top of some of the craters it was about -5 degrees and we'd be walking through cloud! We walked firstly up a part called the 'Devil's Staircase', it had just been re-done so had ACTUAL stairs, whereas it didn't before. This first bit was really hard so we didn't no what to expect from the rest, but it was cool walking up it alonside a stream running down the rocks next to us. We then got to where we'd basically come on this trip for, the bottom of Mt.Ngauruhoe or as we better know it, Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings! It wasn't a part of the walk, it's just situated in the National Park and most people walk past it and carry on up the walk. But we'd spoken to people who'd walked up it and said it was amazing, so we had to! It's got no pathway up it, as not many people go up it, and because it's so steep! so basically, you pick where you want to start and walk up! There's a large part of it covered in hard lava so we decided to walk up next to that and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done! The surface was obviously covered in a number of different sized rocks, which fell away at your feet so you had to be really careful, so we all basically went up crawling, looking for the larger rocks to cling on to and get a bit of steadiness. It took us two hours to get up there and at times we thought we were gonna give up. We were goin at different paces so decided it wasn't best to walk one behind the other with tumbling rocks from our footsteps!!! So we walked in a kind of staggered formation. It didn't get ANY easier, just steeper!We got to the snowy part thinking we were nearly at the crater, but had a little way to go. Then with a massive burst just went up the steepest part to the crater. It's the only mountain I've ever seen which actually is a mountain shape, just a triangle shape so I can see why they used it in the films! At the top there were a couple of steaming geysers, a bit strange/worrying but I guess it is an active volcano! And the views were AMAZING. We were all a bit overwhelmed as we agreed we've never done anything that difficult before, just climbing a mountain without and guidance but our own and it made us realise why we came on this trip for stuff like this!

We stopped at had lunch, on the top of Mount Doom, which we thought was pretty funny. It was warm at first, obviously from the massive effort it took to get up but we soon realised that it wasn't so warm. After a bit we headed down as we had a bus at 4.30, and the walk is planned to get you there on time (baring in mind that Mount Doom isn't ON the walk, so we were already 2 hours behind). It's funny as the entire New Zealand attitude is sometimes a little TOO laid back...in terms of their health and safety! They'll just let you casually climb a mountain that's there and give you a bit of guidance on it, then just say go and do it! Makes life a bit interesting though...so after it taking us 2 hours to get up there, it took us half an hour to get down. So as you can imagine we were going at a pretty fast pace and literally at times, just sliding down the mountain!

At the bottom we had to rest again, but then reaslied we really had to get a move on or we'd miss the bus...and if that happens they call search and rescue! So we carried on walking, the next bit was over a big flat plain which was quite good on the legs, but then a little more climbing was involved. At the top of the next bit was a HUGE red crater which was pretty impressive. Then we walked over the top, and there was Emerald Lake and then another lake, different colour this time! There were small geysers everywhere so you'd get a little burst of sulphur like in Rotorua, nice bad egg smell! Least it kept us focused and sped us up a bit! The walk continued on with some more pretty awesome sights but we couldn't stop thinking about Mt. Doom! We had to REALLY speed up though or we would definitely miss the bus so, in a lot of pain by now as we were truly shattered, we carried on. Then we went down into what was like a rainforest that never seemed to end, with about and hour left, and the signpost said it'd take 2! Eventually we got to the carpark and we've never been happier to see a bus and sit down!!! It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far.

The next day was a bit of a quiet one as we had booked for a skydive, and basically waited around all day for the weather to improve as it was too windy, and unfortunately it didn't so we had to move on. We're gonna have another chance to do it in Franz Josef though so it's not all bad!