Tag 44 - Craters of the Moon

27/01/2015

Steaming craters and a last sunset.

Sleeping in and lying in bed until half past nine. Then slowly get up, have breakfast, and then struggle with the suitcase. The small, new trolley turns out to be smaller than my backpack, and now I'll probably have my backpack as a second carry-on bag and hope that no one minds. The backpack will be mostly empty and might fit into the small suitcase with force.

I'm busy until 2:00 PM and it's cool outside, cloudy, and it starts raining at 1:00 PM. I just want to go to the post office and to Dick Smith to buy some headphones. Let's see if I still go to Craters of the Moon.

I park almost in front of Dick Smith, find the headphones, and walk to the post office to buy the last stamp and send the last seven postcards.

It's just under 8 km to the Craters of the Moon, and it would be a shame not to see it and to travel to distant Germany - so let's take everything that is still available on the last stretch! It costs only 8 dollars admission, and I start walking. It's mostly flat and hilly terrain where you walk on a plank path slightly above the hot surface of the earth, surrounded by steaming fumaroles and hot springs.

There are some smaller craters that are surprisingly covered with lush green ferns and low bushes. There are also small flowers growing on green bushes everywhere. Real fighters in such an environment! Because the soil here is likely to be more characterized by sulfur and acids. It's not busy, and unfortunately, the sky is also covered, a few drops are falling, but that's it. The views into the craters that have formed here are great, even if there aren't as many colors as in Wai-o-Tapu. It's different here, but also great and much less crowded.

After almost 1.5 hours, I'm done, and on the way back to Taupo, I pick up a poorly English-speaking Japanese woman who doesn't stop thanking me for talking to her, asking if she wanted to drive to Taupo instead of walking for an hour and a half on the highway. It's difficult to have a real conversation with her, so it remains at a short transfer, and I drive to the hotel after picking up some salads for dinner at Countdown.

I sit with one of the two chairs in the door of my room, looking at the side of my car, which has to be parked in front of the door, but the feet are still in the evening sun. At half past seven, I walk down to the lake and enjoy a last great sunset over Lake Taupo, while trying to remember as many things, views, and experiences of this incredible journey as possible. There is just too much, and I'm glad that I kept a detailed diary so that everything doesn't melt into a memory mush.

Clouds hang over the three volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park on the horizon, and the sun also sets between clouds to the right of me. The spectacle is over already at 8:15 PM today, and it immediately becomes cool. I walk back to the hotel, sort my last things, and decide to go to Whakarewarewa in Rotorua tomorrow. A inhabited Maori village in the middle of steaming sulfur springs and fumaroles, next to Te Puia, where I was last year.

Daily distance: 18