Walking the Tongariro Crossing

People had told me the low point would be the downhill slog at the end. They were wrong. The low point was when the Swiss couple in front of us started yodelling. And not in an ironic way. Mr C and I exchange horrified-but-amused glances, which faded as a second and then third verse followed. We hopped off the path for a water break.

There was no escaping the walking hordes. The first half of the Tongariro Crossing was the alpine equivalent of the Auckland Harbour Bridge in rush hour, walkers stretching ahead like a long trail of ants, along the valley and up the distant Devil’s Staircase towards the dormant volcanic cones of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe. Against the blasted landscape, they looked like little figures in a Bosch painting, groping their way towards heaven. But the magnificence of the scenery made up for the throngs – we’d never expected it to be a solitary experience. And the weather was playing ball, the deepest of blue skies providing the perfect colour-contrast for the red-streaked scoria spilling down the slopes of Ngauruhoe.