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After last nights disappointing news that the Tongariro Crossing was closed, we had a lie-in. We showered and went downstairs for breakfast and to make pack-up for the short 2 hour walk, with Dodgy, proposed to leave at 10.00am. However, whilst preparing pack-up news came through that the crossing was back on, as the winds had died down, Laura legged it upstairs to tell Sarah (who was finishing packing) the exciting news and we spent the next half hour 'layering-up'. We left at 10.00am and powered through to the National Park, arriving at the starting point at 11.30am and after a briefing by one of the park's guides, the group of 7 of us started the 18.5km trek at 11.45am.
The first half of the walk seemed okay until we hit the 'Devil's Staircase' (we thought we'd got to the top twice, before we actually did!), which was a 900 metre steep climb. This section provided spectacular views of the neighbouring volcano, Mount Ngauruhoe, used as 'Mount Doom' in Lord of the Rings! When we finally got to the top of the 'staircase' we were greeted with the flat stretch of the South Crater. By this point the wind had picked up and the 'chill' forced us to add extra layers. At the end of the Crater we took a huge breath (with a sigh and roll of the eyes!) before tackling another massive climb up the Red Crater towards the sumit of the crossing. The wind picked up even more and the soft moving volcanic rubble slipping beneath our feet made this section even harder to conquer. After photos at the top, on the other side we trudged down the steep slope, like a mountain of sand and rubble, towards beautiful The Emerald Lakes. It was quite scary with the force of the wind crossing us and the constant sliding down the slope - Sarah must have fallen on her arse at least 6 times! Once towards the bottom we settled behind a large rock for shelter to eat our sarnie lunch (companied by bbq crisps, fruit and chocolate, for energy of course!) and warm up, slowly but surely getting the feeling back in our fingers. As we took off, after lunch, Sarah had a scary, but comical, forward fall (a'la You've Been Framed stylee!), falling onto her knees and then flipping over onto her front in, what seemed like, slow motion, luckily she didn't fall/roll further. Finding the landing position quite comfortable actually, she couldn't find an easy or lady-like way to get up, so it was a shufty back to knees, arse in the air, to standing! Voila!
We crossed the Red Crater and started to make the gradual decent, taking in the stunning green views and enjoying the dying gales. We overtook an annoying group of school children, making annoying 'tribal calling' noises and made good time to the finishing point (through a forest area) completing the walk in just over 6 hours. A fantastic feeling of achievement, but every muscle and bone ached. WE CLIMBED A MOUNTAINOUS VOLCANO! Dodgy picked us up and took us to our resort/shalet-like hostel, 'The Park', where we enjoyed bathing our aching bodies in the jacuzzi before zonking out with a pasta dinner and crap TV.
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