We started walking on 3p.m. According to the weather forecast it was suppose to rain heavily at the evening, we thought we had few hours until it will happen, but oh... we were wrong! 15 minutes after we started drizzle began. 30 minutes later the heavy rain showed up and didn't leave us the entire walk. The track was very muddy and slippery. our destination was getting to the hut as fast as we can. As usual when it's raining we double the speed. The track should take 3-5 hours but it took us only 2. We arrived to the hut soaked wet but relieved. Just after we arrived the rain stopped. Few hours later we were standing outside, looking at the amazing sunset. Sarit took about 100 pictures of Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom for "Lord Of The Rings" movie) which was colored in red because of the sunset.
If you ever wondered why we're willing to walk in rain - this is the reason...
The next day was very cloudy. We wondered if it's worth the climbing and if we'll be able to see anything. After a long quandary we decided to continue the trek. Part of the second day is a popular day trip, maybe the most popular day trip in New Zealand, called "Tongariro Crossing". Hundreds of people walked the track that day. At some point, it was like walking in a line with all the people. At the viewpoints, looking down at all those people walking was amazing.
The track goes along the foot of 2 volcanoes : Ngauruhoe & Tongariro. There is an option to climb the summit of those volcanoes but we didn't because it was too cloudy. It was beautiful enough just to walk through other mountains craters along the way. The views were quite different from the views we had on the south island of New Zealand.
We had lunch on the shore of one of the amazing Emerald lakes, probably the highlight of the Tongariro Crossing.
We went to have a quick peek at the blue lake (wasn't as impressive as the Emerald lakes)
and then turned right, away from the crowded Tongariro Crossing and further on to the Northern Circuit. From that point the landscape changed. It was like walking on the moon.
We arrived to the second hut (this time dry) about 2 hours later. The next morning we woke up early, early enough to see the sunrise on Mt. Ngauruhoe.
We could see also the summit of Mt. Ruapehu, definitely a beautiful sight to see on the beginning of a new day.
The sky were clear and it seemed like we're going to have a great weather. We even thought about going back and climb on one of the summits from the day before, but by the time we were ready to go it was so foggy, we couldn't see 1 meter ahead...
We walked the first hour in a complete fog. As the time passed the fog faded away and the views started to reveal. We had our lunch on a nice lookout of the Tama lakes.
The last day was the longest, we were quite exhausted by the end of the day...
The Tongariro Northern Circuit was very beautiful, different from all the other tracks we had on the south island, and we loved every minute of it (well, except walking in the heavy rain at the first day).
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