The Tongariro Crossing

10/03/09
We are up very early this morning, and get ourselves breakfast of cereal in the kitchen. We are among the first out but the RNZAF have beaten us to it! There is a smell of frying bacon and scrambling eggs in the air and we join a table full of anticipatory Kiwis for breakfast. Some of them are going white water rafting today, others are doing various other fun-looking things. However, we are heading off for the Tongariro Crossing. We check out with the lady on Reception, who is concerned that I only have my ordinary fleece and makes me borrow a bigger, fluffier one. We both also borrow the sexiest trousers! They’re waterproof and bright red – no-one’s going to lose me today – I will look like a bipedal lobster! The lady at Reception is clearly slightly worried about us; she waves a few of us off with a mostly cheery but slightly pleading, ‘come back alive!’
Eek.
We get on the bus with a bunch of other similarly-dressed walkers. Woolly hats, waterproof everything, sturdy shoes, thick socks, rations... Andrew, sweetheart, has brought me my walking poles in his luggage as a pleasant surprise, which has saved me borrowing some others I’m not used to. For anyone unfamiliar with fell-walking and similar activities (which included me until about 18 months ago) poles may seem like a very pansy thing to own, a bit of a waste of space and a cop-out. ‘Why have a pair of walking sticks?’ you might find yourself asking…
Well, there are several really good reasons for having them.
1) You can poke things in front of you which look as if they might either bite or be unstable. Poles have saved many a walker from a nasty slip on a loose rock or a bootful of mud from what looked like solid earth but was actually a bog.
2) When you’re walking long distances, a lot of strain is placed on the legs. Having walking poles can take some of that strain off your legs by giving you the opportunity to carry some of your weight on your arms.
3) Walking with poles turns you into a double biped. I at first thought they’d make you into a quadruped, but a walker/human biologist/pole designer I met said that this is not the case. This makes it infinitely easier to go up and down hills as you then have four points of contact with the ground. If it’s shaly or wet, you have twice as much chance of staying upright – important when you’re on the edge of a nasty drop and miles away from any kind of communication signal!
We arrive at the beginning of the Crossing after dire warnings from the bus driver about how we’d be left behind at the other end if we weren’t there by 4pm. He also gives us a chat about the dangers of the Crossing. It’s not an easy walk and can turn quite treacherous in bad weather – a mild amount of which is expected today. I am mildly perturbed by the large black cloud we appear to be heading into. It is grey as we exit the coach and I find a loo and don my sexy waterproof trousers to keep the worst of the water out. Thus trussed up, we are both ready to go and we survey the landscape warily.
It drizzles at us.
We stare back at the landscape and I eye it suspiciously.
A party of schoolkids trots past us with two happy-looking Geography teachers in tow.
We set off…
Into the heathland we go. It has a look of Yorkshire about it; wild, wet heathland which holds a promise of faded beauty, yet to re-emerge, amongst the dead ling. This National Park is rich with plants here and, despite the weather, holds a wild beauty which draws you in to explore.
The first section crosses a flat, wet plain, with tiny flowers nestling in green crevices and a brook occasionally bubbling beneath the boardwalk we follow. There is a bit of a scramble and a climb up to the next section, a wide barren plain. You can imagine Frodo and his companions crossing this, little hairy feet trailing through the dust and mud, carrying food parcels and bedrolls beneath tight-woven elven cloaks before catching their first glimpse of Mordor… You can see why Peter Jackson liked the idea of filming the hobbits’ treacherous journey here!
The trek across the bald plains is marked with little posts with coloured markers on them. These are to be invaluable over the next few hours…
I am tiring a little, but determined to go on. The Devil’s Staircase is rather unpleasant – a never-ending series of steep stairs – I can’t begin to imagine how difficult this must have been before some kind-hearted people took the time and labour to build this all into steps! I try to scamper up to the summit only to arrive at the ‘summit’ breathless and wheezing, but with still more steps to climb. I plod on. I am beginning to sink into my own little grumpy oxygen-debted world…
That was a picnic in the park with fluffy pink fairies.
The Devil’s Staircase leads to a summit after a while… What I see next fills me with horror.
It is windy, raining and cold now and I have to confess I let slip the phrase ‘you have GOT to be f***ing kidding me??!?’ when I see what I must next surmount…
It’s practically vertical.
It’s wet.
It’s shaly.
There are no handholds.
Below it slides an almost sheer drop.
This is fairly close to the idea of my own personal walking-related hell…
This has stopped being fun.
In my terror, I pause to let two other walkers bound past me like goats in the Andes and I feel ashamed of my fear… I offer a quick but heartfelt prayer to St Christopher and launch myself onward and upward. I cling desperately to the one rock I can reach before relying too heavily on a pole, only to find that it has slithered away beneath my weight and I freeze, feet barely gripping the wet gravel. Andrew is, I’m sure, confident and a little frustrated behind me, but I am using every ounce of will I have to push myself beyond this one moment of fear.
Then the path levels out and I plod resolutely onward, passing another girl with only one pole and a pacamac. She has paused too, and looks tired and worried.
I feel for her.
Onward though, or we shall miss the bus!
I am not expecting the slap in the face.
We broach the summit to be hit full-on by a ferocious wind with ice in its teeth. The tiny, sharp particles strafe my naked cheek and I turn away only to be buffeted by the cruel, horizontal wind that blows the ice and rain into our faces. I am cold, wet and wretched. My gloves are so drenched that they are merely keeping a layer of cold water next to my already numb fingers and I drop a pole, unable to feel it in my frail, frozen grip.
We wend our way on and have a chocolate stop behind a large, friendly rock that blocks the worst of the lashing rain.
To my dismay we are not even halfway yet, though we are heading towards the actual summit. Not that you’d notice, given how cloudy and wet it is! Nose to the ground to avoid the howling wet wind that threatens to push us off the top into the cloudy abyss below. Here, it is only just possible to discern the next post along. They are only a few metres apart, but I can barely see the next one. These poles are our lifeline; lose these and there is a chance we would never be seen again – one wrong step off a loose rock near the edge…
This ridge ought to give an unrivalled view of the Red Crater I believe, but there is very little to be seen, even though we are walking right along its great lip.
Further on the ground turns volcanic; barren and ashy, and extremely slippery. That said, it is so soft that with every slide down your feet sink in by half as much so it is fairly stable to walk on.
With the added bonus of not being quite so close to any edges.
We pass the Emerald Lake – that we can see, as it is literally a few feet away from us!
At last we seem to be heading mostly down. This is good for I am weary. Next stop, chilly little hut for lunch!
There is quite a gaggle of woolly-clad walkers here. Some are clearly hardened trekkers with wind-tanned skin and sturdy, well-worn boots. Others are like us, keen but largely inexperienced. There are others though, about whom I am a little concerned. A young lady and two drenched lads, each in sneakers and hoodies, setting out towards the cloudy, unpredictable, rain-soaked summit with a cheerful, ‘Ah, we’ll be fine! It’s an adventure!’ I hope for their sake that they are right and make it down before nightfall…
Another couple, middle-aged I suspect, are busy wringing out their socks. They have good waterproofs, but admit cheerfully that they haven’t done this ort of thing before and are still learning. I think they’ll both be investing in thicker socks and walking boots for the next one! The husband pads around in his cold bare toes and leaves his drenched socks dripping daintily on the bench next to two soggy little bottom prints… Still, they seem in good spirits!
Fed and watered, we press on into the wind.
It is mostly down from here, and the weather is easing for us as we descend. We pass a hot smelly spring, which is on emphatically private Maori land. We respect this, though it would be wonderful to step away from the path and take some lovely photographs! It does pong a bit though… The steam spirals up into the air and makes patterns towards the sky, leaving behind its neon green stain on the earth to show that it is special steam, full of interesting chemicals.
I begin to take photographs again… For anyone who sees my photos and says, ‘well, that doesn’t look so bad, what are you complaining about??’ I will offer to them the explanation that I couldn’t have got to my camera owing to my hands being full of the rock I was trying not to slide off, and had I been able to reach it, it would have been waterlogged within seconds… So ner.
The countryside changes as we descend. It is rather fun to watch. The sparse, scrubby, low-lying plants give way to small bushes, and then to taller ones and yucca plants. There are insect here – I can hear crickets and spot a bee!
There is some glorious lichen dangling form most of the little stumpy trees. It hangs on them like silver-green hair, ancient locks tumbling over withered but open arms.,. The sun comes out and I see moss, interesting cobwebs, another bee, a butterfly or two and hear the birds begin to sing again… My spirits lift.
We descend still further and alpine scrubland gradually gives way to lush rainforest which smells wonderful and squelches wetly beneath our feet. It is a dramatic change. Clearly the lower slopes are lush, volcanic and fertile, providing nourishment to a broad range of plants and their dependents, including some magnificent mosses and staghorn ferns. By the end of the walk, we are wandering by a little river, with waterfalls of varying sizes, and it feels almost like a deciduous English woodland (although admittedly one on some kind of not-entirely-legal drugs…). It’s very pretty and sunny and we have shed many layers in the bright wetness.
We are the last to arrive back at the parking lot, but we are by no means late, which I had feared we would be, given the hideousness of the ascent! The driver, satisfied that he has collected all his charges, sets off for Turangi and the hostel…
We arrive back at the hostel eagerly, and are hungry. We regale the receptionist and tomorrow’s potential walkers with grim tales of clouds and rain, low visibility and woe! It was an experience, and I suppose fun in its own way, apart from the terrifying bit at the top, but I’m glad it’s over….
We hang out our socks on the line and head for the supermarket to get fooood. We fancy soup and a quiche. We find some nice soup – hearty, thick stuff with chicken and vegetables in it – but are at a loss for a quiche. A nice lady shows us where they are. Well, where IT is. There’s only one sort – a huge ham affair – we take one anyway.
Chomp!
We pop it in the oven when we get back and warm our soup. It’s Watties (Kiwi name for heinz) an d it turns out to be a thicker, tastier version of Heinz Chicken and Pasta Big Soup – perfect! We dish our quiche (which we did in the little roasting oven, of which there are two) and find that, even after our long day we can only manage two thirds of it… We give the rest to a lean and hungry-looking student-type who has only beans and rice for tea. He looks very happy about the donation of pie and it is wolfed down with every evidence of enjoyment…
Time for bed – we rescue our clothing and I inspect for blisters; happily and unexpectedly there are none, though I am aching a little and tired.
I shall sleep well tonight!