Day 22 Tongariro, volcanoes, Mount Doom

Today the "Tongariro Alpine Crossing" was actually planned, but Aeolus, the God of Wind, prevented us from doing it. He blew too many gusts at us. As you can see in the photo above, Mt. Ngauruhoe is the perfect volcano and played the crucial role as Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo fought his way up during the Battle of Middle-earth in the movie and then threw THE RING into its fire. We wanted to do the same, to climb up and look into the terrifying volcanic crater, but the park management prohibited it due to the strong winds. So we couldn't fulfill this long-awaited desire. Our disappointment was accordingly great when our carrier sent us an SMS during breakfast and announced the decision of the park administration.

Daniel Schlumpf, our host from formerly Zurich, now proud owner of the River Lodge Bed & Breakfast, recommended an alternative program: Taranaki Waterfalls, and then the lower and upper Tama Lakes, also volcanic craters, just not as exposed as Mount Doom and open for exploration. Throughout the day, we still had fantastic views of Mount Doom or Mordor, just from the other side (photo series, how we approached it over several hours, see above, including a photo of how it looked in the film).

So that's what we did: we drove to the national park and got some advice from a lady at the info point, then started hiking towards the waterfalls. Buuuut... somehow we ended up on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and walked in the wrong direction for another 2 km before Norman got suspicious. So we went back on the right track and continued happily. Actually, there was no sign of a storm in the idyllic river valley. The sun was shining and it was cold, but okay. We quickly reached and admired the waterfalls and then continued to the volcanoes. Here, we encountered hikers coming towards us who had been arrested during a demonstration for wearing masks. And the wind was getting stronger and stronger. At the first lake, it was already blowing heavily and I needed a hat and a down jacket. The next ascent was challenging. We could already see hikers struggling up the ridge from afar. It was steep and incredibly windy. I was almost blown away several times and it was difficult to breathe with the whistling wind. But we steadily climbed up the ridge and were now glad and understood the decision to close the even bigger volcano. By the way, it dramatically enveloped itself in clouds during our ascent, so that it was no longer visible. Once at the top, you had to walk with a really wide stance to not get blown over. We could only hide behind larger rocks to still have some view of the gigantic blue lakes. By the way, all the volcanoes are still active and can erupt at any time, and after seeing the terrible images of the volcanic eruption four weeks ago, we know what that would mean. You should actually check the official website beforehand to see how the volcano warning level is, but we only remembered that at the top again...😦

Due to the worsening weather conditions, we didn't stay long but started the return journey. After all, we still had over 10 km ahead of us. Going up, we had taken 4 km more due to our detour. When going downhill, we both realized that our fingers could hardly bend anymore because they were really swollen. We both had proper ogre hands and as a countermeasure, we started singing "Hands up Baby Hands Up" and walked with our arms stretched upwards.... Now we are going to have dinner at the Italian restaurant, and we really deserve it after 21.5 km and 5 hours (pure walking time) of alpine hiking.