New Zealand: Mt Doom and Merlot

Our favourite (and most tiring) day so far was the traverse of the infamous Tongariro Alpine Crossing, said to be the best one day hike in New Zealand. Our day began very early at 5.25am as we had to catch the bus to the start of the trail at 6am. We waited in hats and gloves – not what we’d expected from summer in New Zealand! The trail is an 18.5km hike through spectacular volcanic scenery, so we were really pleased that the weather forecast was for perfect clear skies and little wind. As the sun slowly rose over the mountains we thawed out a bit and before long were walking in shorts and T-shirts. We ascended steeply over pretty treacherous terrain for the first couple of hours with Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings looming over us, and were afforded breathtaking views on our descent of the other side: bright red craters, yellow sulphur fumeroles, jagged red and black cliffs and emerald green sulphur lakes that were warm to touch. Part of the descent was on steep loose shingle, so lots of nearly-slips and shrieks! On our descent back into the valley we passed through rolling green hills (like the Lake District!) and ended up in a fern forest with trickling waterfalls. The scenery on the entire hike completely bowled us, and our camera memories, over!

We’ve also done handful of short but superb hikes this week. One was only a 15 minute round trip (Mangapohue Natural Bridge), but the scenery was so impressive it probably took us an hour! Rolling pastures with long grasses and sheep, tropical fern forests and massive dripping caves which we explored with our headtorches. Another took us to a beautiful lacy waterfall, and yet another to the gushing Huka Falls, where an immense volume of water is pushed through a narrow channel and then blasted horizontally out into a plunge pool – impressive and quite mesmerising to watch. We’ve also walked through the Kaori wildlife sanctuary, where the birdsong was totally amazing (like the sounds they play in relaxation CDs!!) and cheeky black robins flew very close. We also got to walk into a cave to look for wetas, which we thought would be tiny little spiders and when the torch fell upon one we realised they were actually like enormous scary grasshoppers… so we didn’t hang about too long! One little gem of a walk was just outside of Lake Taupo in Turangi, where we walked past beautifully clear hot pools and plopping mud pools. We got close to one of the mud pots to take photos of the boiling mud, that was until it suddenly welled up rather quickly and sent us both scarpering!

A particular spot we warmed to was Hawkes Bay and the Cape Kidnappers region, on the East Coast of the North Island. Hawkes Bay is a big vineyard spot, so we visited a few of the vineyards to lap up the wonderful wines and admire the views across the vineyards. The free tastings were quite special as we had the places to ourselves so we sniffed, swilled and gulped up to 10 different wines at a time. Needless to say we ended up buying two bottles of the lovely stuff. We also treated ourselves to lunch at the beautiful Mission Winery (3 courses!), which definitely made us feel more flashpacker than backpacker! Whilst in the region we took a morning tour out to see the gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers. We were driven overland in a 4x4 through rolling countryside (lots of sheep), sheer sea cliffs and forest – we hadn’t expected the drive there to be so beautiful. Once there we came upon the enormous colony and spent much time photographing the graceful birds at close quarters, as they did their funny courtship dances, swooped overhead and generally made a lot of noise and a bit of a stink. Really impressive to see so many of them so close though! We stayed in a great little hostel near the Cape called Gannet Cottage, that only slept 10 and felt a bit like the house on the prairie with wooden decking and flowers around it. We woke to the sounds of the sea and cows by the window.

The hostels we’ve been staying in have all been unique and very homely, thanks to a bit of consultant-like organisation prior to the trip by Miss Batley. On the way down to Wellington we stayed in the particularly lovely Paekakariki Backpackers, which had decking overlooking the sea and fairly luxurious rooms (ours even had a chaise longue and ensuite in it!). We had a great sunset picnic on the beach looking towards the South Island. A very special place.