This weekend I went to hike one of New Zealand’s famous “tramping” trails. Tramping is what they call hiking here. I was invited by some animator peoples from work. I didn’t really know what to expect only that it was near a volcano and that some of The Lord of The Rings was filmed there. In The Return of The King, they show Mount Doom, the home of the evil dude and he has this big lava guzzling volcano in his backyard. I went to the hiking store here and asked what I would need and they said that the weather was going to be nice, so maybe just some long underwear. So, I got some black ones (all they had in my size) and was told that there will be tons of people hiking with these on under their shorts. Yep, didn’t see a single person sporting my look. Hehe. Which, I guess makes me unique, and ....... a dude wearing tights.

 

 We left Friday around 5pm and got up to the middle of the north island around 10pm.  The lodge we stayed at caters to hikers and provides a hostel type environment. There were a lot of clean rooms with bunk beds, communal bathrooms, a hot tub, and a big communal kitchen/living room area. It was pretty cheap to stay and very convenient. We went to bed shortly after getting there because of the early 6am wake-up call. The dude that worked at the lodge also drove the shuttle to drop us off at the starting point of the trail. He also kinda looked like the lead singer from Spin Doctors. Anyway, the trail was about 10.6 miles. It took most of us about 9 hours to do. It ranged from loose rocky slight inclines, to steep uphill boulders, to flat mars like stretches, to steep downhill slippery slopes, to slight downhill dirt, to a forest/jungle. It was fairly hard. My calves are still killing me and I feel like I’ve ground down my foot bones into chalk. One person in our group started to feel her knee hurting pretty bad (about the 4 miles mark) and had to suffer the rest of the 6 miles at a slower pace than the rest of us. 6 of us stayed behind to help carry stuff and walked with her the rest of the way so she didn’t have to be left behind. 3 of the speedy dudes went ahead to make sure they caught the shuttle.

 

After we finished, we were exhausted. We took a relaxing dip in the hot tub, then got some pizza from this joint down the street from the lodge. The next morning we found a good diner and ate some breakfast. We then headed for home except to make a detour to see another shooting location for The Lord of the Rings. This location was when the hobbits meet up with Gollum and he’s trying to catch some fish in some rocky stream. Some of the freaks in our group starting jumping around in the stream acting like Gollum to amuse the rest of us. Nothing like impersonating a mutant half midget fish eating jewelry monger. Ahh, good times.

 

Here’s a map and description of the hike. The red line on the map is the trail and the starting point is on the left.

 

“The Tongariro National Park is rich in cultural identity, it has dramatic scenery and unique land forms this combines to make the Tongariro Crossing a world-renowned trek.   (Rated as the best one day trek in New Zealand and listed by many in the top 10 day treks in the world) Many who complete the 17 kilometre journey will tell you the climbs can be steep and the  weather can be unpredictable.”