April 2: Waitomo to Tongariro National Park

Previously: April 1

Today was mostly a driving and rest day. After packing, we drove off through beautiful hilly countryside that showed a pleasant and ever-changing mixture of trees and grassland filled with sheep, goats, and cattle. Also the occasional herd of pigs, which is a bit odd given that you don’t think of pigs as grazing animals, and yet there they were, cropping the grass. Apart from the pigs, the countryside reminds me a lot of northern Vermont, though with visibly different vegetation and more livestock.

About 20 minutes from our destination, we caught our first glimpse of the mountains that form the center of the national park. Mount Ruapehu is the tallest, and is older and much more worn, with strong erosion channels visible even from far out. Mount Tongariro is lower, and is a beautiful perfect cone. Both are active volcanoes, though not currently erupting or showing any other signs of trouble. (New Zealand monitors their volcanoes carefully, and shut down the hiking trails for 9 months several years back when there was an eruption.)

For our stay at Tongariro, we’d chosen at the Discovery Lodge in National Park Village, as they were one of the last available places that offered private rooms with an ensuite bathroom, but also because they have a reputation of really knowing the park well. (The manager, Callum Harland, apparently holds the record for completing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing—1.5 hours, versus 5 hours for really fast walkers in top shape and 8 hours for plodders like Madame and me who do much sightseeing along the way.) The lodge is intermediate between a hotel and a hostel, as it seems there are no dorms but there is a common area. The facilities are low-end but adequate, with a decently equipped kitchenette in our room. It’s located about 8 km outside of National Park Village, the enormous metropolis (all 4 blocks of it) that is the base for most hikers who are visiting the park. That’s a bit inconvenient, since it means we can’t just stroll into town for dinner, but on the plus side, it’s a quieter location out in the countryside and they do run shuttles to the park. Shuttles are essential, since it’s too far to walk, and given the huge amount of traffic that arrives during tourist season, there’s either no parking or time-limited parking at the park itself.

We spent the afternoon preparing for the long crossing (i.e., doing preliminary packing of our bags), which we’re hoping will be possible tomorrow. Mountain weather changes rapidly, so it’s difficult to predict conditions more than half a day in advance. Most tour operators and hikers make a go/no-go decision based on the weather forecast the night before a possible hike, so we weren’t going to know whether the hike was on until 7:30 this evening. The really bad rainy weather and strong winds, which can close the trail, seem to have stopped for the moment, as we have beautiful sunshine today, and if the wind isn’t too bad, we’re optimistic we can go tomorrow. If not, the following day remains possible.

But even in late summer, with a favorable forecast the night before, you can be surprised by really bad weather; rain and wind are particularly dangerous. So you have to pack carefully and ensure that you bring everything you need for any combination of conditions, as there’s nowhere to obtain supplies or clothing along the route. That resulted in a large pack for me, as I’m a big guy, and even a simple layer of polar fleece takes up lots of room.

Fortunately, there are toilets every 1.5 hours along the trail or thereabouts, as the ecological consequences of having (on some days) thousands of hikers leaving their wastes at the side of the trail would be unpleasant at best. But you also have to bring your own toilet paper.

We stopped in at the I-site (tourist information center) in Whackapapapa, about 15 minutes down the road, to get a map of the Tongariro Transalpine Crossing and some free Internet access so we couild let the moms know we’d survived yesterday’s caving and were safely at our next destination. The staff were very friendly and reassuring, though everyone we’ve talked to, from our hostess at the lodge (Mikelina?) to our hostess at the I-site (Steph) repeatedly warned us how cold it was going to be and repeatedly emphasized the need for good clothing (particularly a good raincoat). Lots of people don’t prepare at all, and many of them end up in trouble. The forecast tomorrow calls for high winds (up to 35 km/hour or about 22 mph), which will lower the temperature significantly. It’s already going to be about 5°C colder at the summit than at the start of the trail due to the increase in altitude, so it could hit as low as about –5°C at the summit with windchill. Warmer than when we left Montreal, but we’ve been in New Zealand now for almost two weeks at ca. 20°C, so we won’t still be adapted to colder temperatues. Still, so long as we keep moving, it shouldn’t be terrible. We’ve got really good base layers, mid-layers, and outerwear—Shoshanna wears up to 6 layers, not including her rain jacket.

After we left the I-site, we walked a few minutes down the road to Tussocks, a pub our host at the Lodge had recommended. Simple pub fare, as we’d opted for something hearty that would sustain us tomorrow: Shoshanna had a chicken burger with the works, including onion rings, and I had a bacon cheeseburger—with a fried egg on it, which is apparently an Australian/New Zealand thing. Maybe in case you feel you’re not getting enough protein? It’s tasty and different. We also shared a Monteith Dark Ale, which was a nice smooth dark.

Why not a pint each? Because we need to get up crazy early tomorrow morning to catch the shuttle that will take us to the start of tomorrow’s walk, and we want to be well rested. Our shuttle leaves at 5:50 sharp, about an hour before sunrise; sometimes they leave even earlier. The logic is that you want to get on the trail as early as possible so you have plenty of time on the mountain, you want to get there well before all the sane people who rise at a decent hour, you want to have time on the mountain with only a few score people around you instead of hundreds and if you can get an early start you might accomplish this, and it’s easier to complete the first steep parts of the ascent before the sun rises and it starts getting warm. Makes sense to me, so we’ve agreed to be in bed early and asleep by 9 (with a little help from Benadryl) so that we get in a good 7 or so hours of sleep before we have to rise.

Details in a day or so, when we get back to free Internet in town and have recovered enough to blog.

Next installment: April 3