An early start to a successful day. By 6am we were just about ready to start walking, preceding this had been quite a bit of driving to leave a car at the end of the crossing so Keryn and I would have transport once we were done. Travis and Sophie were only going halfway (having done the complete crossing earlier in the year).
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
It took Keryn and I about 10 hours to complete the walk including a side trip to the summit of Tongariro. There had been concerns about fitness and strength of knees before the trip but we both coped well with only a couple of little blisters, sore feet and mild sunburn to complain about once done. The full description of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing track can be found on the DOC website, I’m just going to show a few photos rather than write a step by step description of our walk.
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
I’m glad we had dropped off the car at the Ketetahi carpark, having to wait for a bus would not have been a fun end to the day. Now we’ll have to get ready to do the walk again when there is more snow around, but I think that’ll be a few years away.
