Mordor: At Tongariro National Park

Day 5-6: Tongariro

Another two hours drive south of Rotorua and we were in Tongariro National Park. This area is sparsely populated and wildly beautiful, dominated by three towering, active volcanoes. There is also a beautiful crater lake which is visible only by taking a whole day hike (the Tongariro Crossing which requires pre-booking and fine weather). As the landscape is so barren and rocky, it was used for the Mordor scenes in LOTR trilogy - the ones where the hobbits were making their way to Mount Doom, followed by "my precious". We didn't have time to do the whole day hike but did the easy 2 hour summit around one of the peaks. The hike started at a leisurely pace since we took the ski chair lift up two-thirds of the way. Actually, I have never been on a ski chair lift before and found it quite scary at first! After a few minutes, I started feeling more comfortable and was brave enough to wave at fellow chair lifters. When we had ascended 2020m above sea level and reached Knoll Ridge Chalet, we started our hike. It was cloudy when we started walking the trail (following the blue signs) and it was fairly steep up the volcano with plenty of loose rocks around. We almost gave up but a last spurt of energy pushed us to the summit - the picture shows the view of the valley at the top. And suddenly the clouds and mist cleared and we were left with brilliant sunshine.

That night, we started the 4.5 hour drive to Wellington staying in a little town in the middle of nowhere, Taihape. There were a few motels and even fewer places to have dinner. We ended up in the local chinese takeaway where they made me a nice vegetarian curry (nice but nothing compared to the Hoi Shan recipe).