Tongariro Crossing

What do Frodo Baggins and Jeremy Ciaccia have in common?

That's right, they have both climbed Mount Doom! (Mount Ngauruhoe in Jeremy's case.)

Still confused? Mount Ngauruhoe is Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings. This site is part of New Zealand's Tongariro National Park and on Saturday we completed the 19.4 km Tongariro Alpine crossing. This spectacular trek took us over steep volcanic terrain, past steaming craters and Emerald Lakes.

Our group of 14 started our early Saturday morning and finished, in mostly one piece late Saturday afternoon. Six brave souls - Jeremy, James, Jacco, Nate, Paul and Michelle decided to hike the very steep Mount Ngauruhoe, a 2287 uphill climb that takes about 1.5 hours and a steep slide (30 minutes) through rocks and gravel, back to the bottom.

We were prepared for any sort of weather but were very lucky to have sun and clear skies the entire time. By mid-afternoon a few clouds rolled in, which was a relief to our sun burnt bodies.

Jeremy and I are happy to have finally completed the Tongariro Crossing as it has been on our "to-do" list since arriving in New Zealand. As this was a three day weekend (we celebrated Auckland Anniversary day today), our weekend was certainly not complete with just the walk. On Sunday our friend Steve was taking us to learn how to fly fish. Stay tuned for more details!