The Mountain Calls
This is a translation of a German post. View original or Never translate German
07:47
On a gravel road somewhere near the Tongariro National Park — we have been awake for close to two hours already.
"I think I'll drive on the right again for a bit, gotta establish German values here."
Said, done.
But let's start from the top...
20 hours earlier
We have arrived in Taupo — a small city on the shore of the huge lake Taupo right in the middle of the northern island.
Lake Taupo
At the reception we are encouraged to give the Huka Falls a visit. We don't have anything better to do anyway so we head there, expecting a mediocre waterfall.
After a 1.5 hour hike in the rain through a beautiful forest along the river, the Huka Falls turn out to be much nicer than anticipated.
Water like ice
Loads of turquoise-blue water are crashing down into a lower lake where the foaming water appears almost entirely white.
It was a great sight to see but, instead of walking there in the rain, we could've also just taken the car...
Even better with the background sound
And because that wasn't a long enough hike yet, we are super excited to jump out of our beds at 6 am the next morning, have a quick bite in the hostel kitchen, and drive on to Mt. Tongariro — we're doing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing today, said to be the most beautiful single-day hike in New Zealand.
Welcome to Mt. Doom
A shuttle bus takes us from the car park to the starting point of the hike from where we start walking towards the mountain — not in a crowd, but not all alone either. The terrain already looks somewhat alien — volcanic rock everywhere you look, broken up by some small streams and sparse vegetation.
Mountain panorama
The about 20km long trail, for which we will take just under 7 hours, leads through huge volcanic craters, along mountain ridges, past colourful lakes and just breathtaking scenery in general. Every now and then, Jan is so distracted by our surroundings that he forgets cursing me for suggesting this hike.
Which still happens a lot, believe me.
From the devil's steps we move on to the red crater and continue towards the blue lake — the names already give you a good impression of what's going on here.
Mordor
Large parts of the Lord of the Rings movies were shot here — and we can feel that. Those who want to extend the hike by another 3-4 hours can even climb the summit of Mt. Doom to get rid of some unloved jewellery...
Here as well: Steam.
Again, we are reminded of how sparsely populated most of New Zealand is: From the highest point of the crossing you can look far off into the distance — but you see neither homes nor cities nor cars.
Interesting water colours...
... make for a great photo opportunity.
The sheer endless descent leads us, pretty exhausted, through dense, mossy forest along a wild river that could be taken straight from a New Zealand picture book.
A bit above the forest
On the last few meters (Hermann is already in sight) it becomes clear that we will break our step-record back from Hong Kong today — just barely with 37687 steps, but very hard-earned.
In addition to the many steps, we have done quite some elevation, too, making the record feel even more valuable. And please don't laugh, but I've done the first serious hike in my life today. I am not planning to leave the bed tomorrow, and maybe I won't have to.
After this, we're taking the car for the 700m to our dinner, of course — Jan won't hear anything else.
Oktoberfest
I return from our dinner excursion (Jan is still at the supermarket getting chocolate) and, completely unprepared, find the probably biggest culture-shock of this journey so far: Our hostel is essentially a small Oktoberfest.
While the beer consumption is rather moderate, people here speak German exclusively — all the way on the other side of the world. I briefly wish I was back on some unlit construction site nowhere in China and wonder how New Zealand's economy can stomach all of these German work-and-travel people...
At least we manage to fool the partially German group sharing our table at dinner with our basically native Korean-skills: 가자! — 그래. ('Let's go!' — 'Alright.')
Update: Freedom is not free
It's breaking news for us right now, the well-informed among you have probably heard it already: Our protest in Korea was successful (Yes, I'm assuming our participation was crucial): A couple of hours ago president Park Geun Hye has been removed from power — now it's just up to the supreme court to approve the decision.