Monday 18th February
Although it was Sunday when I found myself at the airport in the dropoff/pickup zone, it was actually Monday by the time Sita came out (cleaning walking boots takes a bit of time). We had to take a slightly scenic route home as there were diversions so Sita got to see some more of Auckland then initially planned. Getting home I showed her to her room, before we called it a night. The reason was that we had to wake up early as I had to drop her to the City centre as she went on a tour (intercity) to the Bay of Islands. I went back home and got ready before going to work. In the evening, I dropped Bhavni to work (after a potato and broccoli bake) and just had to pick Sita up a afterwards. Getting home, we sat and looked at some photos while she ate.
Tuesday
I left Sita at home in the morning to go to work. Bhavni being Bhavni, instead of going home. phoned Sita and told her to do the alarm, lock the door and take a bus to the Museum, where they had a look around and Sita went for the cultural show. At lunch time they picked me up from work and we got some sandwiches from Subway before going to Cornwall park for a picknic. Having just enough time we went to the top of one tree hill for some photo opportunities before I got dropped back to work whilst they went to Mission Bay.
We had dinner at home – Bhere and looked at some of our photos.
Wednesday
While I went to work in the morning, the girls had a lie in and eventually left to go to see the Coromandal going all the way to Coromandal Town. They visited a place called The Waterworks. They came home at a little past 8pm. We made pasta for dinner.
Thursday
Bhavni had to go to a meeting at her hospital and I was at work, so we sent Sitia to the city to catch the ferry to Tiritiri Island. Bhavni and her met up after in the city and when I drove into the city (parking near the civic) after 6pm (I got caught in a little bit of traffic) getting there for 6.30. They were both hungery, so by the time I had walked a bit down Queens Street they were already checking out food in Eliot Stables. We had a mixture of stuff, nice place, though most of the food was lacking in flavour – apart from the guacamole at the end which unfortunately was tiny. We then went to go to Apego – but we found that it was closed !
Bhavni and sita had their ice cream from the famous place on Queens Street before we got in the car and drove across the Harbour bridge for the view. Someone then had the idea to go to then end of Devonport to have a look at the view. Although the view is not bad, it still is not as good as the one on the bridge (though you can not get a good photo whilst driving).
Friday
Again I was at work. Bhavni and Sita went into town in the morning (after doing some preperation for food) as they had decided to go to Wahiki. In the end they missed the initial ferry by a few minutes so they spent a while looking around Albert Park which was being set up for the Chinese new years festival before getting the next ferry.
I in the mean time came home in the evening, but the guys were not back from the city as yet, so I had to rush and get ready to start making the toasted sandwiches. Bhavni’s friend arrived before they had come back even. Well after the terrible duo came back, they finished off making the food, whilst I got to loading the car.
We were on the road having just left after 6pm. Traffic was a pain, (we even took Great South Road for a while to avoid the SH1 for 4 junctions) and we got stuck a bit in Manakou. Out of the city things sped up much more and we drove to Taupo without much stopping. Getting there we dropped Bhavni’s friend to the backpackers before checking into our Motel. eating a bit and then settling in for the night.
Saturday
It was a really early start today, with the alarm going off at 4.40am. Getting ready we then had breakfast – cereal and tea, before going to the backpackers to pick up Bhavni’s friend.
We had to drive around lake Taupo on the SH1 and the SH47 to Adventure Headquarters, which were a transport company to get us to the start of the walk as the car parks were closed to the public since the eruption there. As we were driving on the SH1, we joined a large convoy of pickups heading our way, but they turned carried on on the SH41, so not to the park as we started thinking.
We got to the transport people around 6.40am, just as they were opening, where we checked in and waited for the bus to leave around 7am. The driver of the bus recognised my voice from my phone calls when booking and was quite friendly. We got to the start of the track (Mangetepopo car park) in around 20 minuites, where we took a few seconds to get ready before starting on the track. It was quite cold in the morning, but as I knew it was going to be hot I did not wear many layers (though the rain jacket was still in the back pack), whilst others kept on layering and delayering. The walk to Soda Springs was quite pleasant on mostly well formed track and not hard with gentle tussock lava fields around us. As we ascended we got views of Mt Taranaki over the plains.
We decided to see the soda springs on the way back and started on the steep climb ahead. This was well formed track with stairs so not very difficult, climbing around 300m. This then got us to our first Sign – Volcanic Hazard – Not sure how helpful the text was about pyroclastic flows!
The walk from here was a lovely walk on the plateau between the mountains. We just went past the track to the top of Mt Ngauruhoe – which looked crazily steep and carried on to the South Crater, talking to a couple from Austria.
We then got to our next climb – which was much harder a climb as there was lots of loose scree and narrow paths. This was tiring as it was up a good 250m. We all lukilly managed to make it up without much sliding – though Sita showed she was far better then us at this.
Finally getting to the next plateau – just before the highest point on the crossing, we stopped and had a quick break before going to the top. As we got over the top, we got our first look at the Emerald Lakes and in the distance the Blue Lake, whilst on the side was the Red Crater.
We sat for a bit and took in the views there, but did not attempt to go down the scree slope to the lakes as that was meant to be quite hard to come up from – also the sign was there from DOC, which marked the danger zone for the eruption, so then we headed back to the rocky plateau just before, which was out of the wind, and had our lunch break.
After eating, we decided to head towards the peak of Tongeriro, which was just a little side path. Although only 100m or so higher than what we were at, it was not so easy as the track also descended a couple of times and the path was in places loose fine scree. Bhavni and her friend took a time out – looking at a decent, whilst Sita and I carried on to the summit, where we took a couple of photos (Mt Raupehu was visible from there). We got back to the guys, had a couple of minutes rest then started our decent,
The initial descent was really tough going and we had to be careful not to slide down. Other people were having difficulty and some even gave up and slid on their bottoms down the slope. But we eventually made it to the bottom of the slope and to the high plateau, where we looked at the South Crater from close (looking from above is so much more impressive). The plateau was a brief respite before we got to the next decent. Whilst it was well formed, it was just a long continuous descent that was quite tiring for me.
We had a quick look at Soda Springs (Bhavni met one of here colleagues from work who were on a much longer trek that day), before continuing on. This part really seemed much longer then when going up and we did not have a break as we wanted to make sure that we caught the bus at 4pm as the next one was at 5.30pm. It was a mixed blessing getting to the hut, as it was a identifiable landmark but it was also 25minuites more to the end, passing the crowds of people going a little too slowly.
We managed to reach the car park at around 3.40pm, where we just sat down and waited for our bus pick-up at 4pm, which took us to out car. We headed back to Taupo and dropped off Bhavnis friend whilst we went and got our selves cleaned up.
At 6pm we met up again and went for food – going for Italian – baked brie, pizza and pasta. Most of the pizza was taken back as a take away. We went back to the motel and called it a night.
Sunday
We woke up a little leisurely and had food in the motel – including the remaining pizza. After checking out we went for a walk about – first to Farmers as Bhavni wanted to buy some clothes for Prisha, Neer and Saanya. We then spent a little time looking at the views of the mountains from across the lake.
We picked up Bhavnis colleague and drove to Huka Falls taking some pictures and wondering around. The water was lower then the time we visited with Shamil, though still impressive. We then drove to the rapids and the Dam to look at the water surge – though it was not in operation as works were being carried out.
From there we carried on, driving to Tirau, where we stopped for a long while – initially I thought it was just for photos, but they decided to have food – chips (jokers would not allow any leeway in time). Bhavni then drove to the airport (filling up at Bombay). We dropped Sita off at the airport just as the checkin was closing (luckilly there was absolutely no delay or Sita would have missed the flight) . We then drove to Ponsenby to drop Bhavnis colleague, before returning home and eating onion tomato chevro (with sweetcorn).
We watched some tv, before driving into town to go to Albert park for Chinese lantern festival. The lanterns were amazing and the park was really busy – everyone was out. We even got to see fireworks at the odd time of 10.20pm. The food did not look good and infact as we were there the power was turned off. This was our cue to go home.
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