Log Date: January 7, 2006

Location: New Zealand Tongariro National Park

We spent a few days in Tongariro National Park, which is about 3 hours south of Auckland right in the center of the north island.

There are 3 volcanoes in this area - Mt Tongariro, Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Ruapehu (Ruapehu blew in 1995-96).  We climbed the Tongariro Crossing trail - an amazing 800 people climb this trail each day in season - it was a mob scene.  The trail started out desert like - low shrubbery, no grass, no trees and lots of rock.  Very easy climb for the first hour than it goes straight up and I mean straight UP! So straight up that I contemplated why I was doing this and more so, why I thought it was fun.  We thought about climbing Mt Ngauruhoe that same day (which is actually Mt Doom in the "Lord of the Rings") but it was lost in the clouds and also an additional 2 hours of straight up climbing. So we decided to just forgo the additional "fun" knowing that we had at least 5 more hours of climbing from this point just to reach the bus to take us back to our campsite.

At the top of Mt Tongariro there are (3) Emerald Lakes - truly emerald green in color due to the minerals leaching from the nearby thermal area.  Near the top of Mt Tongariro there is a section called the Red Crater. The red color was formed by the high temp oxidation in the iron - it is a bright red and outlines the inside of the entire crater.  The views of the Mangatepopo Valley and the Mt Ruapehu were fantastic from here.  There are many hot springs and sulfur pools everywhere due to the volcanic activity and there is almost always a sulfur odor lurking about and steam rising from the ground.

The next day we drove to Mt Ruapehu it is about 6000'. It is snow covered even this time of year - remember we are just approaching summertime in New Zealand. In addition to being an active volcano it is a ski area and also where many scenes from the "Lord of the Rings" were shot.  We saw some of the movie vistas but it was really cold and windy that day so we didn't get to the top of the mountain.  It was a very unusual looking ski area. The entire mountain is rock not a tree or blade of grass to be found - just volcanic rock. This is a very bizarre and barren looking terrain.  The chalets are built in rubble.  I am sure snow covered it looks like any other ski area but without a snow covering the entire mountain it was a strange sight to see - just rock and cliffs.  It was a dull red/brown/gray rock color.

We stopped at a "Thermal Park". Red, green, yellow ponds with steam coming off the top.  The vibrant colors come from the different minerals leaching into the water.  The sulfur in the steam rising off the lakes is so strong that it has coated the surrounding forest and all the trees have a yellow tinge to them.  Just from walking through the area (about 2 hours) my shirt stunk so bad of sulfur I had to take it off.  There were also mud pools. Which is basically boiling mud.  The mud can leap and explode sometimes a couple of feet in the air while making a plopping hissing sound as they erupt.  There are also many Geysers that erupt during the day.  We set out to see one and found that they make it erupt every day at the same time by feeding it soap.  We were a little disappointed that they had to offer a sacrifice to make it erupt and that it just didn't erupt on its own at 10AM every day...it erupted to almost 20'... a mere 200 or so people shared this intimate event.

Enjoying Life Onboard.

Susan and Laura

SV Mystic Traveler