Lord of the Rings!

When Mr Adam Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magni- ficence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton......

In our very own Lotr adventure we journeyed  to Mt Doom, a long and dangerous journey across middle earth(well 1hr 30 down state highway 1, but is was 5 am!) so that we could, like Frodo destroy the one true ring...or go for a walk in the snow. The approach from Taupo at around 6am, the sun casting a deep red glow across the mountains and mist we could almost believe we were in the movie....

 

ok well not quite... we were taking part in the tongariro crossing, one of the great walks of New zealand and said to be the best one day hike in the country and in the top ten of the world! The Hike is around 18.5km and took us about 6 hours, from the start in the volcanic slopes of the mountains to the snow capped plains nearer the summit the down past the geothermal pools and the golden grass medows and through the birch forest to the end. The walk was in no way as hard as half dome, but with us working full time (doing this on our day off) we really felt it (well at least i did!) Unfortunately as we reached the high point the clouds started to set in and so the promised view of coast to coast never materialized, however the views were still incredible! We did'nt climb up Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt doom) (due to the lack of climbing equipment and experience, but we did attempt to reach the summit of Mt Tongariro, however the mix of snow, ice and deadly drop made us stop half way (Tess would have gone on....) but hey, at least we got to play in some snow!

Here is the view from the base of Mt doom! Oh yer if you are looking at the photos on flickr tess is wearing shorts for most of the alpine walk... that there some hardy little legs!