Heyho! Racing through time and stories here we go again - although this will be the last post for a while because we are leaving civilization again and heading into the wilderness! We promised it quite a while ago on this blog (about 6 months) and now we are keeping our word: Do you recognize the mountain in the picture?? I thought "Mount Doom" would be the perfect introduction to our trip to the dark and evil country Mordor of Middle Earth and Sauron!
Well, to be more precise, we spent a couple of days in Tongariro National Park, which is the best known park here on the North Island and once you've seen the pictures you'll probably agree with me that there is a good reason why this place is so famous! Tongariro mainly consists of two volcanos, Mount Ruapehu (which last errupted in 1996 and which is the North Island's highest mountain), and Mount Ngauruhoe, with whome I fell in love instantly and which you can see on the picture. The landscape around the mountains is very desert-like, covered in sharp black lava stones and as hostile as it gets. You can almost feel the orgs and uruk-hai looming behind the next corner.
However, before we actually got to explore this fabulous place, we had some obstacles to overcome. First, we had a slight problem due to food poisoning which we, and especially David, caught in Wellington when eating out for David's birthday (no more fish for us for the rest of our trip!!!). Second, we had to fight the elements once more. I won't mention all the rain, but I just had to take a picture of our dear tent all frozen! Yes, what you can see glittering on the tent in the picture is ice. Solid frozen ice. We even had some iceicles inside. Nice feeling, I can tell you. (Bye the way, if anyone knows how to get rid of mildew [Schimmel], please let us know because we have some serious problems with this since we cann't dry our tent in this country. We have already tried scrubbing with soap or soaking in vinegar but it seems hopeless!)
Well, back to Tongariro and Mordor. Despite of our problems, we decided that we could not just take a look at "Mount Doom" from beneath, we just had to get up there! So off we went on the famous Tongariro Crossing, a 17km one-day hike, very overcrowded with tourists but nevertheless worthwhile every drop of sweat! (Sorry, Bina, I hope you are not too jealous when you see the pics...) I am
not quite sure how to describe to you what we felt wandering through this incredible landscape but I hope that our pictures will tell you more than our words. The mixture of impressions was just overwhelming. There were those desert-like landscapes and dried out volcano craters with their monotony of colours and shapes sending down a shiver in your spine and giving you the impression of being all forlorn in a place that is not made for human existance or any form of life. Around the next bend of the track, however, minerals had colored the rocks in a way no artist could imagine and the mixture of red, orange, brown, violet, yellow, white, black and green reminded more of a rainbow than a hostile environment.
Then there were the lakes, suddenly appearing on the horizon after having climbed the highest point of the track - red crater (beautifully seen on a picture in David's post). Their colors where so astonishing regarding the surroundings.
We would have expected something more grey or brownish, but apparently nature is more creative than that. To my huge disappointment, I was not allowed to jump into one of them, the water is just too acid to do so. But considering the sulfur smell of them and all the steam-vents letting of clouds of hot steam around us, I was not too hard to convince... Instead we simply admired this unreal setting and tried to figure out which of our planets might actually look like that. We definitely would not have had the Earth as our first choice.
The actual highlight of the whole trip, however, was definitely the view of Mount Ngauruhoe. On the picture you can see the desert-like surroundings and red crater in the front, then there comes my mountain with the wonderful crater cone, and in the background you can get a glimpse of Mount Ruapehu still covered in snow. Can there be a more fascinating view?! Can you imagine standing up there with the wind howling around you, almost blowing you off your feet, the smell of sulfur in your nose, the knowledge that there are not many places like this in the world, and the distinct feeling in your stomach that you are experiencing a very unique moment? For us, it is very clear, that no matter what is still to come for us during our travels, this park with it's unique landscape and fascinating Mount Doom will definitely figure among the highlights of our whole trip.
Heyho! Racing through time and stories here we go again - although this will be the last post for a while because we are leaving civilization again and heading into the wilderness! We promised it quite a while ago on this blog (about 6 months) and now we are keeping our word: Do you recognize the mountain in the picture?? I thought "Mount Doom" would be the perfect introduction to our trip to the dark and evil country Mordor of Middle Earth and Sauron!
Well, to be more precise, we spent a couple of days in Tongariro National Park, which is the best known park here on the North Island and once you've seen the pictures you'll probably agree with me that there is a good reason why this place is so famous! Tongariro mainly consists of two volcanos, Mount Ruapehu (which last errupted in 1996 and which is the North Island's highest mountain), and Mount Ngauruhoe, with whome I fell in love instantly and which you can see on the picture. The landscape around the mountains is very desert-like, covered in sharp black lava stones and as hostile as it gets. You can almost feel the orgs and uruk-hai looming behind the next corner.
However, before we actually got to explore this fabulous place, we had some obstacles to overcome. First, we had a slight problem due to food poisoning which we, and especially David, caught in Wellington when eating out for David's birthday (no more fish for us for the rest of our trip!!!). Second, we had to fight the elements once more. I won't mention all the rain, but I just had to take a picture of our dear tent all frozen! Yes, what you can see glittering on the tent in the picture is ice. Solid frozen ice. We even had some iceicles inside. Nice feeling, I can tell you. (Bye the way, if anyone knows how to get rid of mildew [Schimmel], please let us know because we have some serious problems with this since we cann't dry our tent in this country. We have already tried scrubbing with soap or soaking in vinegar but it seems hopeless!)
Well, back to Tongariro and Mordor. Despite of our problems, we decided that we could not just take a look at "Mount Doom" from beneath, we just had to get up there! So off we went on the famous Tongariro Crossing, a 17km one-day hike, very overcrowded with tourists but nevertheless worthwhile every drop of sweat! (Sorry, Bina, I hope you are not too jealous when you see the pics...) I am
not quite sure how to describe to you what we felt wandering through this incredible landscape but I hope that our pictures will tell you more than our words. The mixture of impressions was just overwhelming. There were those desert-like landscapes and dried out volcano craters with their monotony of colours and shapes sending down a shiver in your spine and giving you the impression of being all forlorn in a place that is not made for human existance or any form of life. Around the next bend of the track, however, minerals had colored the rocks in a way no artist could imagine and the mixture of red, orange, brown, violet, yellow, white, black and green reminded more of a rainbow than a hostile environment.
Then there were the lakes, suddenly appearing on the horizon after having climbed the highest point of the track - red crater (beautifully seen on a picture in David's post). Their colors where so astonishing regarding the surroundings.
We would have expected something more grey or brownish, but apparently nature is more creative than that. To my huge disappointment, I was not allowed to jump into one of them, the water is just too acid to do so. But considering the sulfur smell of them and all the steam-vents letting of clouds of hot steam around us, I was not too hard to convince... Instead we simply admired this unreal setting and tried to figure out which of our planets might actually look like that. We definitely would not have had the Earth as our first choice.
The actual highlight of the whole trip, however, was definitely the view of Mount Ngauruhoe. On the picture you can see the desert-like surroundings and red crater in the front, then there comes my mountain with the wonderful crater cone, and in the background you can get a glimpse of Mount Ruapehu still covered in snow. Can there be a more fascinating view?! Can you imagine standing up there with the wind howling around you, almost blowing you off your feet, the smell of sulfur in your nose, the knowledge that there are not many places like this in the world, and the distinct feeling in your stomach that you are experiencing a very unique moment? For us, it is very clear, that no matter what is still to come for us during our travels, this park with it's unique landscape and fascinating Mount Doom will definitely figure among the highlights of our whole trip.
1 comment:
thanks for sharing the story :)
Post a Comment