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The next day was the Tongiraro Crossing (cue music of impending doom). This was a hike through the active volcanoes in
a National Park in Whakapapa. (Whakapapa is a Maori name, pronounced fukapapa). The walk takes at least 6
hours (17km) and crosses the National park's scenically amazing Volcanic Plateau (complete with steaming craters). The bus
drops you at the start & picks you up at the end. This was a class day, I really enjoyed it and had been looking
forward to it all the way through New Zealand. Parts of it were tough going, but with me & Emmet being somewhat fit,
it wasn't too bad. We were blessed with the weather, it was a beautiful day. For Lord Of The Rings fans, Mt. Doom
is here, which was my main reason to want to do the walk.
After climbing up quite a ways, you pass by Mt Doom, then go back down again slightly into a huge crater, with steam
rising from the ground. You then climb up again, out of the crater, pass by lots of sulphor lakes, then eventually descend
down the mountains through a forest. At the highest point of the walk, you're 2km high. There were quite a few changes of
scenery; throughout the walk, we went from grassy mountains to rock to a crater desert to lakes to grassy mountains to a forest.
(Ask me about the second-degree burns I got to my face here.... really).
After a few beers that night (in a class hostel up in the mountains, complete with sauna), we rose the next morning to
face our last day with the tour (sniff). Me & Emmet got dropped off in the little 'town' of Wariou (cafe, shop,
Army base, Army museum), to catch our bus back to Auckland. We visited the Army museum, which was really good. For you
gun/war nuts out there, they had every gun ever. From every force in every war, they had it on display.
So we arrived back in Auckland that day, and just chilled out that night. The next day, we visited the Skytower and picked
up a few souvenirs, a little depressed about leaving New Zealand the next morning, and the 12 hour flight to LA.
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