One of the Emerald Lakes
New Zealand Day 5
Today I had an out of body experience. I decided to wake up at the crack of dawn to go on a 19.5km hike. But it was totally worth it! It’s called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and it’s one of the most famous day hikes in New Zealand. In both islands. It’s also where they filmed Mordor in the Lord of the Rings series.
The shuttle took us to one end of the crossing. While we were driving there, we were very nervous because it was very cloudy and you could barely see the mountains at all. It cleared up eventually though and we had another beautiful day in New Zealand.
The first couple kilometers of the hike were extremely easy and I was thinking that they overdramatized the intenseness of this hike. Then we came across a sign asking us if we were sure we wanted to continue. After that sign was where we got lots of stairs to take us across the crossing.
We then reached where we thought was the top. Boy were we mistaken, the next part was basically straight up the mountain with gravel that didn’t provide very good footing. At one point I froze on the mountain not sure if I could go any further, I was afraid I would fall because if you know me well, let’s just say I’m not the most coordinated person. Fortunately, this kiwi guy came up behind me and asked me if I needed a hand. He held my hand up the rest of the mountain. I’m so glad that some guys still have that damsel in distress instinct.
Now we really were at the top and the views were breathtaking. Then we went down a ways to these magnificent pools called the “emerald lakes”. Far more magnificent than a picture can accurately portray.
After the descent to the emerald lakes, we had an easy but long bushwalk to the end of the trail where the shuttle picked us up and brought us back to the hostel.
But we weren’t done for the day, we still had a four hour drive to Wellington where we would finish our New Zealand road trip
