Tongariro Alpine Crossing :)

So finally I made one of the most famous walks in NZ, the Tongariro Mountain Crossing, which is a 90 minutes drive from Taupo and is 19.4 km long.

So the start was to get up at 5 am, and catch the shuttle towards the starting point at 1120 m.

 

The first part was still in the shades of the mountains, and therefore pretty cold and everybody was still tired and already impressed by the amount of tourists doing this walk :/

After a while the sun came out :)

The first stop at 1650 m, where we had already a beautiful view over the landscape :)

 

This was also the junction where Johannes and me decided to go up the Mount Ngauruhoe, also known as Mount Doom from the Lord of the Ring.

So Elisa and Tabea were going further the Mountain Crossing and we did the 3h side walk on top of the Mt Doom.

So luckily we met Moritz and Lisa also from the Hostel, and now we were four motivated guys starting the trip ;)

It was very steep, and no clear path was given, so it was more or less a free hike, and the ground was very slippery due to lots of loose stones and rubble, and also a little dangerous. 

Next break, we enjoyed the amazing scenery and already had some snow on our way up ;)

Beautiful scenery on 2291m  :)

 

YEAH! We made it :D

On top we met Alex, another hostel guy who comes from Altomünster, and we found out that we have some friends in common back home ;D 

The way down was even more hard, and it was a mixture of sliding, skiing and skating down the hill..

So all in all we were always a lot quicker than the times shown on the signs, we made the Mt Doom including a 30 minutes break on top in 2.5 hours ;)

After the Mt Doom we had to make the same way back to the junction and cross this area here, and then go up again to 1886m.

This lakes (there are two of it) are called blue lakes I guess ;)

 So from this point, it just went down the rest of the day, and finally we felt the exhausting hikes, and after a while got quiet bored by just walking straight a good path down the hill..

After the volcanic area, we arrived at the Ketetahi Carpark on 760m, at around 3:30 pm, and took the next shuttle to the hostel, and soon fall asleep in the bus ;)

So all in all we hiked for about 8:30 hours, and did a total of 1400m up, and 1800m down.

All information stolen from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongariro_Alpine_Crossing