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Day 139- Fresh as daisies we were on the shuttle for 7am and arrived at the car park at 20 past where the driver told us to take care and not to pass the Emerald Lakes. It was very cloudy and quite cold so we got a stride on and arrived at Soda Springs earlier than expected. There wasn't much to them so carried on and marched up the Devil's Staircase which wasn't a patch on the steps up Emei Shan in China. At the top we abruptly came to flat land. We had arrived at the South Crater but still could only see a few feet in front of us because of the cloud. It took around 30 mins to cross over before we came to another climb. The cloud was starting to part giving us glimpses of the fabulous scenery around us. We climbed half way up the crater side and found shelter from the wind behind a large outcrop of rock where we ate some sandwiches and took a break. Then we continued up and by now nearly all the low lying cloud had disappeared so we could see right across the South Crater and over to Mt Ngauruhoe- famously known as Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings. At the top we could see down into red crater which was an usual dark red colour. We walked along the crater edge and came to the Emerald Lakes. They were magnificent, so bright. We sat and stared for a while and then reluctantly retreated as the rest of the crossing then enters the 2km summit hazard zone of Mt Ruapehu. As we couldn't complete the full crossing we had a bit of spare time so climbed to the peak of Mt Tongariro itself. It curved round the South Crater and came to a peak and gave us amazing views of Mt Ngauruhoe and the surrounding landscape. Beautiful. We started our way back hoping to catch the earlier shuttle at 3.30pm. We couldn't particularly rush though as the ground predominantly consisted of ash so was really difficult to walk on, we did manage to make it back though and even had 15 minutes to spare. Once on the bus we munched the rest of our sandwiches and chilled out at the hostel and just read our books in the sun. Needless to say we were shattered so had an early night before a long day of driving tomorrow!
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john (John) so jealous of you rite now going to all the lord of the ring places missing you so much and your realy liking those sandwiches sitting here with nana and mam reading you newest statusas xxxx