Hey everyone

Today we walked the Tongariro Crossing!

This is a 19km track over volcanoes, craters, and steaming rivers and lakes, and is regarded as one of the best day walks in the world.

We woke up early and filled up on breakfast before being picked up from outside the hostel at 6:20am, for a hour and a half drive to the start of the track. As we neared the end of the drive, the volcanoes came into view. Mt Ngauruhoe was in Lord of the Rings as Mount Doom, and upon seeing it you can instantly see why. The dark molten rock and cone shape makes it look like a stereotypical volcano, though really it is actually only a vent of the nearby Mt Tongariro.

We arrived at the start of the track and after a few photos, began the walk alongside James and Ash, another couple on the Kiwi bus. It started easily, along a valley which lead us closer to Mt Tongariro on our left and Mt Ngauruhoe on our right. At the end of the valley we had a quick stop to make use of the toilets, the last for several kilometres, and for a quick snack. We then began the dreaded hike up the 'Devil's Staircase'. This was a steep climb over rough basalt, up a seemingly endless path of staircases. Almost everyone struggled on this section, and at one stage Christina turned to Alex and said "I can't do this, I feel like I'm going to die...". But on we went, and at a slower pace with fewer breaks it seemed a little easier. We eventually made it to the top and were greeted by the sight of... cloud - on a clear day you can see for miles.

We then walked across the South Crater, which fortunately was very flat. Next was another tough climb at the edge of crater, which we had to scramble up. This led to Red Crater Ridge where we stopped for a bite to eat, but we soon decided to carry on as we were really feeling the cold as we sat and ate. The path then became pretty dangerous, as we edged along the ridge of the crater, the path was often no wider than a couple of feet, with a sheer drop to our left. The landscape around us that we could see was dark red and charcoal grey, from the ash and solidifided magma.

We trekked on, and very slowly and carefully made our way down the edge of the ridge, now with steep drops on either side of the track. This took us to the Emerald Lakes, which slowly came into view through the thick cloud. The area smelt of sulphur and steam came from the lakes, which were created when explosion craters filled with water. We stopped to take in the unusual sight of the almost glowing blue lakes in the middle of the rough volcanic terrain at about 1500m above sea level, then on we went.

The hardest parts of the trek were over, as were the coldest (we were so glad we had our coats), and from here on it was a very slow descent for about 10km. We had been surrounded by a lot of people at the beginning of the trek but fortunately, by this stage, the groups had spread out and now we met or were overtaken by someone else only once every few minutes. We could appreciate the vastness of the mountains around us so much more when there wasn't a mass of people snapping away next to us.

We followed the path for a long time around a mountain, chewing sugary sweets, chatting away and taking the occasional photo. As we had descended below the cloud, we could now see for miles in front of us and had a beautiful lake with mountains on the far side constantly in view. We could really understand why people rated this as one of the best day walks in New Zealand (and the world). We made a brief stop at a hut to use the toilets (the first since they were last mentioned a few paragraphs ago) but were keen to keep our swift pace up and so on we trekked with only a few kilometres to go.

We zig-zagged down the side of the mountain and made it to the final stretch, through woodland. By this stage we were down from five layers to three (yes we were really 'that' warm!), and with all the walking down hill we knew our legs weren't going to be happy in the following morning. Also by this stage, everything heavy that was in Christina's bag had been transferred to Alex's. Hmm.

We raced through the forest, counting down the kilometres to go, and got excited when we reached the 19km marker - time for a photo! The end was in sight. A hundred more metres and we came out of the forest into the car park, the end of the trek! Hooray! We cheered and we hugged, and we looked for a place to sit. It was only half 2, so we had managed the trek in six hours, when it typically takes 7 to 8. However, the downside to our wonderful fitness and awesome walking was that we now had to wait a whole hour before the first bus came to pick us up. On second thoughts, maybe we should have walked a little slower.

We sat, we chatted, we ate everything we could find in our bags. We weren't impressed that when others finished the trek they weren't quite so jubilant about their achievement as we had been. Apparently we were the only ones who thought it was worth cheering about. Finally, after far far too much waiting, the buses turned up. Naturally, there was no orderly queuing. Annoyingly, this meant we didn't make it onto the first bus to leave. The 20 minutes sitting on the second bus waiting for it to leave seemed like the longest 20 minutes ever. FINALLY, we began the journey back to Taupo. We napped, we listened to music, we dreamt of cups of tea.

Back at the hostel, it was tea, showers, tea, food, food, tea, food, and bed. Tomorrow we leave Taupo and head south... Xxx