Tongariro Crossing

After Christmas, we did the famous Tongariro Crossing together with friends from Auckland. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who had the idea to do it on that day, as the trail resembled a mass migration.

The Tongariro Crossing is a challenging 21-kilometer hike. At the beginning, we hiked uphill for two and a half hours. Then we attempted to conquer Mount Doom (Mordor), but we failed miserably due to the sandy terrain and the time constraint for the rest of the hike. After that, we continued climbing higher mountains. The weather also became more extreme. It started getting cold, then foggy, and finally windy. After over 9 hours of hiking, we finally made it. Our legs could only carry us to BurgerKing and then to our bed.