_{February 26:}  Tongariro Alpine Crossing.  It turned cold during the night.  Our little cabin at the Discovery Lodge that looks like a hut out of Kenya, has an electric heater, but it doesn’t work when you turn off the light in the room.  So you need to unscrew the light bulb, unless you want to leave the light on all night, or freeze.  The cold shower here is really cold. 

At 5:45 in the morning, Reggie and I are ready for the bus to take us to the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.  Today there will be no cycling but a long trek.  Seven to eight hours of it, a 19 km track between the volcanoes Tongariro and Ngauruhoe (named “Mt. Doom” in the “Lord of the Rings” films).  It is still dark when we arrive at the starting point at 1,150 meters elevation.  In front of us, looking east, the Mangatepopo Saddle needs to be scaled before we will see the sun.  The track is well maintained and with a headlamp easy to follow.  It is still partly frozen after the cold starry night.  A dim light from the first sunrays appears from behind the saddle as we move up the gently sloping terrain.  Then some clouds develop just as we reach the bottom where the steep climb up the saddle begins.  Reggie is moving ahead while I am taking my time so that I don’t get out of breath, but also to take in the spectacle of the rising sun now hitting some of the lower ground towards the west, and to admire the colors of the terrain changing in slow motion; and above all to relish the austere volcanic landscape.  As I move higher I get above the clouds, and just before I reach the saddle the sun rises over the rim and blinds me with its brilliant white light.  The land all around now shows itself in full colors.  Mt. Ngauruhoe looms on the right gray at the bottom and black and red at the top, a perfect cone, its volcanic activity invisible except for a small fumarole near its top.  Mt. Tongariro, less spectacular, is to the left.  I have crossed the ragged lava fields; now the South Crater that separates the two volcanoes is spreading out in front of me, an ochre-colored plane, naked, devoid of any vegetation.  From here the next climb takes me up to Red Carter at about 1,900 meters altitude, where one looks down into Dante’s Inferno, it seems; a crater with pitch-black and burgundy-red walls and a narrow vertical light-gray cavity that looks like the entrance to hell.  The mystic atmosphere is heightened by the clouds that move constantly in and out, occasionally reducing sight to a few meters.  Below the crater, the terrain falls into a wide plane of rocks, lava and volcanic ash.  When the clouds are gone, three emerald-colored lakes sparkle in the morning light at the foot of Red Crater; and in another crater beyond, the wind ripples the larger Blue Lake.  It is a marvelous sight and one feels elevated standing up here with such color-coded spectacle at one’s feet. 

            Getting down from here is no small feat as one slides more than walks down a steep slope of pumice where many a leg has been broken.  (This time it seems injuries are minor, a girl from another group only sprains her ankle, no other casualties.)  Sulfur clouds from the many fumaroles on the flanks of Red Crater make the descend eerie at times as a person in front of you seems to be swallowed up by them only to be released again in an instant.  After the descend and a closer look at the Emerald Lakes, fog is moving in again.  I cross the Central Crater in a milky light until the sun breaks through once more as I climb up to the crater’s rim and Blue Lake.  Once the sight is clear, I can see the circular brown-gray wall of the Central Crater and the lava that has flowed across it. 

            After Blue Lake, the path goes down for about four hours with beautiful vistas across Lake Rotoaira 1,000 meters below, and Lake Taupo beyond.  Below the region of lava flows and jagged rocks, some lichens and mosses appear, then grasses and some small flowers emerge, and then shrubs.  Further down I enter a region of underwood growth and after that a dense native forest where a small stream is rushing to reach Lake Rotoaira.  After an hour through the forest I finally reach the end of the track at an elevation of 800 meters where the bus picks me up to return to the Discovery Lodge.  I’m glad to sit down, happy but a bit fatigued.  There is no sight of Reggie who in his speedy fashion competing against himself finished the trek two hours earlier and caught a prior shuttle.

            A Welsh couple, Lyn and Ian, walked at a pace similar to mine, so that we met up several times along the trail.  Ian, balding and bearded, has a broad open smile as if to show that he is content with his world.  Lyn, petite with long blond hair, also seems to be at peace with herself looking forward to what life has to offer.  Ian is a retired public servant who worked in various capacities in the Welsh administrative service and also in the criminal justice system in a function dealing with caritative services for the UK as a whole.  Ian in his youth about 40 years ago, spent some 18 months in New Zealand.  He and Lyn now plan to visit some of his schoolmates from that time, whom he hasn’t seen since he left.  Also on the hike, are two Austrian teachers, Gabriela and Barbara, who benefit from a sabbatical that they are entitled to every six years it seems.  It looks like a good arrangement, and they clearly enjoy it.  They are excited about their visit here, and glad to be out of the snow at home.  They move around New Zealand in a small camping car that doesn’t look too comfortable, but is economic and certainly a step up from the “Rollendes Hotel” (rolling hotel) that I see a couple of weeks later.  The “Hotel” is a rabbit cage on wheels with seventeen rows of bunk beds, each row with three levels for a total of 51 beds.  With its German name, I wonder whether it is reserved for Germans.  Maybe nobody else would want to sleep in there.

Gabriela is a high school English teacher, while Barbara teaches Italian and History.  I invite them for a bottle of wine later at the Discovery Lodge where we join up with Reggie.  When we get to it, the bottle empties fast even though Reggie, a strict teetotaler, doesn’t help us in the effort.   I am of course reminded that some twenty years ago the Austrian wine industry got almost ruined when it was revealed that several wineries had added anti-freeze liquid to their wines to make them sweeter; and I wonder whether this might not have been one of the reasons why B. and G. enjoyed this New Zealand wine so much.  The evening unfolds, the food could have been better, but why complain after a day of scenic wonder? 

            After dinner, back to our cabin, we put on the heater as the cold settles back in.  We unscrew the light bulb and hope for a sound sleep.  Wake-up time tomorrow morning: seven o’clock.

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