Tongariro pass!

I woke up at 04:00am and despite the clatter and the constant noise I was generating my room mates still were rast asleep.  Amazing. 

Had a big breakfast and then caught the shuttle bus and started speaking to some german girls in german, finally putting it to some good use.  It's actually so strange how many Germans there are in New Zealand, not thatiut's a bad thing, but I just didn't expect so many of them.

The shuttle bus took an hour to get to the car park at the base of the tongariro pass.  Well known for being called New Zealands best 1day hike.  I asked a dutch vietnamese guy and another German girl if I could walk with them and they said "of course" so as a result I walked up the devils stairs with them.

The weather was absolutely amazing this morning however it started to get ridiculously hot towards midday.  Wish I had worn a T-shirt to be honest.  The devils staircase was a challenge and a half although we climbed that in good time 08:55.

The views even from the top of the devils staircase were breathtaking so I couldn't wait to see the views from the top of one of the peaks.

We then decided to hike up mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom), which is pretty relevant to my degree course which was useful, e.g. Seeing the lava flows and the views of the volcanic formations from such a high viewing point.  

It's still an active volcano, but thankfully no eruptions or volcanic activity occured while I was on the mountain.

The hike up was a complete fail the first time and if I'm honest it was even a bit scary.  We hiked up the face of the volcano for 20 minutes and suddenly realised we had made a big mistake.  We had started to walk up the skree which is almost impossible to climb on.  I kept slipping and boulders and rocks from people further up the mountain face came tumbling down towards us. 

So we turned back but met a group of Brits who told us to climb up the old solidified lava flows as the rocks were solid and it was easier to climb up.

It doesnt look steep in the photo, but trust me it was!

I pretty much scrambled up the whole peak too afraid to look behind me as I discovered I hate heights and the thought of slipping or falling down the slope would have driven me crazy!

So I just powered on up the various rock faces trying not to tumble down to the bottom, there were no clear pathways or posts it was a do it yourself jobby.

It took us 1hr and 40mins to reach the top and I could finally enjoy the views!  After I scrambled up a giant sheet of snow and then a mount of loose rubble.  

Above the clouds

So high up!

When we got to the top we had lunch and I took some pictures of the crater.

 We had a but of a laugh saying that we should have brought a ring up to cast into the crater (Lord of the rings referrence)

I have to say though despite slipping on my arse several times on the snow, getting back down to the plains was quite easy and in some places fun, it was like surfing on sand, however my knees were almost dead by the end of it and I had a further 13km to go which fully knackered my legs.

I then hiked up to the big red crater and then onto the big blue lake before descending down into the forest to the car park.  I didn't necessarily rush this part of the walk.. Although I needed to catch my bus so I didn't mess about too much, turns out I just made the bus with 5 minutes to spare.  Very lucky.