Mt. Egmont (Taranaki)

Mt. Egmont is not actually a mountain. He is a volcano. It can be seen from afar, because almost everything around Mt. Egmont is flat, only this 2518m high, perfectly shaped cone volcano dominates the landscape. In real life, of course, it looks much more impressive...

Mt. Egmont is sacred to the Maori, so it is not allowed to be accessed above the snow line. However, there is a small "mountain" next to Mt. Egmont and there is a hike there, up and down again. Once at the top you should have a great view of the cone volcano.

Ok, I'll try this out. It goes up the mountain on wooden walkways and stairs, always through the dense forest, and it actually goes quite well. There are a few wooden sticks down by the entrance, so I'll take one with me as a companion.

When I get to the top I see: nothing! Clouds came up and swallowed everything! Great. Not a volcanic cone to be seen! I'll wait a little longer, maybe the cloud cover will break up after all. But running made me warm and at some point I was wearing my two jackets up there and I was still cold. So that's it. It's going down again.

I'm still thinking about whether I should leave the stick up here, but in the end I take it back down with me. This stick will be my salvation for the descent! As nice as it was to walk up the wooden walkways, it was just as stupid to walk down. I can't really tell the walkways from the steps. Without the stick to support me, I would have fallen several times because I didn't see the step or tripped over something...

I'm really getting to the point where I don't feel like it anymore. I notice again that such long hikes just annoy me. 2-3 hours is totally ok, but here I walk for almost 5 hours (up and down) and that annoys me. My feet hurt in my shoes, the journey is annoying and never-ending. Conversing with others is almost impossible because if I don't concentrate 100% on the path, the risk of stumbling is even greater. So I walk down the mountain in silence and fully concentrated and I see nothing other than wooden walkways and stairs.

Mt. Egmont is really beautiful, but I prefer to look at it from a distance...