Taupo & The Tongariro Crossing

After spending some time at the GreeNZ family, I went back to Rotorua. Although it wasn't the worst place to be... I still hated it. I stayed in the hotel for one more week and had a (pretty drunk) goodbye party. The people have always been lovely, I just needed to get out of that place! There were still a couple of days left before I had to go back to Auckland, to pick up my family. We decided to spent these days in Taupo, where we bought the car... That's right! We have a car now! He's name is Steve, and Steve has a Kayak (we call it Steve's Kayak). We slept on this beautiful free campsite outside of the city, where we met up with Jacob and Madeline (a couple from America). The plan was to do the Tongariro Crossing the next day. Also Damien and his companion at the time (Maria), came down to Taupo to do the crossing together. So the next day we all woke up at 5, packed our backpacks and made ourselves ready for the 1.5 hour car drive to get to the entrance. We started the track at around 7. It was only supposed to be a 6 hour hike of 19,6 km... not too bad we thought! After 2 hours of walking we see a sign that said: "Mount Ngarahoe 3 hours in return". We looked up at the mountain, a little terrified but just too excited, because we knew it was the famous mountain from Lord of the rings. I wasn't too convinced at first (because it looked so steep, and I'm not the best with hights) but then just decided to go for it! There must be a path to walk on, at least that's what I thought...

After 15 minutes me and Madeline looked at each other with this look that said it all. I think we both knew we were doing something that we would regret later, but we just kept on walking. Halfway through I started to feel a little terrified. It was getting steep, more steep, really steep and maybe too steep? My anxiety kicked in, and yes... I cried a little up there...

I think nobody expected it to be this rough. The mountain (which was a volcano) was really hard to walk on without a path. It's all just loose rocks without a path. People were screaming "ROOOCKS" because they were just rolling down the mountain on a speed that could kill you if it landed on your head. I was half way, too far to go back now! So I just continued what you couldn't call 'walking' anymore. I had to start using my hands to climb because it was getting so steep. And then eventually after a couple of panic attacks I was standing on top of the volcano together with Max, Madeline and Jacob. I think it all took us at least 15 minutes to calm down and understand what we just did. This Volcano was 2300 m high and we walked it straight up. I know I'm making it sound as if it's one of the most horrible things I've ever done.. but it actually was! It was beautiful, but terrifying. And then after half an hour of standing on top of this volcano, we realised we had to go down too...

Ok, all of this was pretty negative, I know. Eventually being back at the ground again, I never felt more proud in my entire life. I pushed myself and I crossed some boundaries and it was hard. I felt weak, but I'd never felt more powerful before. I don't think I would ever do it again, but I'm really glad I did! So the mountain itself took us 5 hours and we were pretty exhausted, but we still had 4 more hours to walk. All the things we've seen on that crossing were beautiful. We had so many stunning views! It was all worth it and I felt blessed for the fact that I was able to do that crossing with my friends, my love and the sun on my side.