Taupo and Tongariro

Last weekend I got a little bit of time to go traveling again. I went together with Paul and Charlotte to do the Tongariro Crossing again. I went there already a few months ago but the weather was miserable (see here) so now I hoped to have better conditions. But we have winter here and winter means a lot of rain and even snow. The weather forecast was not really promising with rain and snow and even a heavy weather warning on Saturday. So our plan was to drive down to Lake Taupo on Saturday afternoon and visit the hot springs there. We stay for one night in Taupo and on Sunday morning we will decide what to do.

Lake Taupo is the largest lake in NZ. The lake is basically a huge crater filled with water. It says that a volcano like this was responsible for the extinction of the dinosauriers. The latest larger eruption was about 180 AD. The ash clouds turned the sky red over Rome and China. The volcano is still active.

Lake Taupo with Mt Ruapehu covered in snow in the background.

We arrived in Taupo at about 4pm. After we checked into the hostel we went straight to the hot pools before it is getting dark. The pools are actually several small hot water streams with little water falls ending in the big Waikato River. So you can stay in the hot water and when you feel it's getting too hot you just have a swim in the river. But since it is winter here this river is freezing cold so nothing for bad hearts. And the best of all is that it is for free!

We stayed there until it got dark and went back to the hostel to have dinner. Because it was raining in Taupo we decided not to do the Tongariro Crossing the next day but to go there and see what else we can do. So the night was free to go out and have fun in Taupo. Now this town is pretty small with about 10,000 people living here. But nevertheless the pub we went to was packed with people. They had live music outside and inside a dance floor and DJ. We had fun there till they kicked us out at 3 in morning. For us it was sure that we won't be able to do the crossing the next day.

We three woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover and the sun shine in our face. Unfortunatelly (for us) it was a beautiful day and we had the perfect conditions for the crossing. But it was too late to start this 6 hours walk. So we just went to the start of the track and walked it for one hour and turned back.

Mount Tongariro and Mount Ngaruahoe

Paul, Charlotte and me, tramping...
Again Mt Ngaruahoe. BTW this volcano (still active) is Mt Doom at the Lord Of The Rings movie. The trackAnd the last picture is again Mt Ruapehu. When I see this mountain I'm always reminded that I failed to climb it. This time even the road to the ski fields was closed for conventional cars because of ice and snow.
Our day was over and we started the 3 hours drive back to Hamilton.