Looking Down Over the Tongariro Crossing
Whoa, what a view! Loving all the colours in this shot, the red volcanic crater, the white snow, the yellowy mountains in the distance and the blue sky :) Definitely makes the 2-3 hour side trip worthwhile. As a bonus, we were now out of sync with the main caterpillar train of folk on the crossing, so the rest of the day felt a bit less busy.
Mt Ngauruhoe Volcano aka Mt Doom
“Frodo we’ve made it! Give us the ring then….”,“I thought you had it?”
“Shit. I think i left it in the car.”
We’re here! At Lord of The Rings’s Mordor. We had to battle many an Orc on the path on the way up, as it’s Christmas and they’re all on their summer holidays.
I expected really over-the-top signage and gift shops selling hobbit feet shoes, Gandalf hats and rings-a-plenty, but not a sausage! It actually feels pretty remote and untouched. Glad its not been overdone or commercialised. In fact it’s barely mentioned. ( Maybe secretly I wanted my photo taken in an elf outfit for Xmas? ) ;)
Ps. I tried to climb up to the crater but chickened out a third of the way up, and pegged it back down! Well dodgy underfoot. Cookie and Eric had an awesome adventure though right to the top. Amazing!
The original plan was to climb this bad boy on Christmas Day, forecast for quite strong wind high up today, so we’re going to do it on Boxing Day instead.