7. Taupo, and the seven hour trek
One of the main attractions in Taupo is access to the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a epic 'must do' one way trek between volcanic craters. And a decision, i.e. was I going to do it?
For the carless, the trek involved paying 120 dollars for a shuttle bus to pick you up at 5.10am, to drop you off at the start at 7am, then walking for what was billed as 8-9 hours. It featured such delights as a 'hard ascent', followed by a 'difficult ascent' up something nicknamed 'the devil's staircase'... and then a 'steep descent' followed by 'easy descent' and culminating in a further 2 hours of 'long descent'. God. I had absolutely no idea at all whether I was fit enough to do it. I couldn't remember the last time i'd even walked for an hour non-stop!
Agh. Dilemmas, dilemmas, and no one to share my worries with. The hostel man on reception had said 'ah you'll be fine!' but without a glance at my physique or further questions about my recent levels of activity. On that tiniest bit of encouragement I bit the bullet and booked myself a slot for the following morning. We were lucky, the weather would be good they said. I bought my packed lunch, packed up my rucksack with clothes for all weathers, set my alarm for 4.30am and then anxiously woke every hour until it finally went off.
The shuttle bus, as expected, was filled solely with twenty-something backpackers. We drove in silence in the dark with condensation fogging our view out of the windows. The driver explained the rules around return shuttle buses. The bus would leave on the dot at 3pm. We were to make it to the red crater, and leave it by 11am, or we wouldn't make the bus. If we hadn't made the penultimate stop by 1pm, we were to ring him, and find our own way home, by hitch-hiking. My mouth was dry, heart palpitating. I was scared! It was at this point I realised, to my horror, that the one thing i'd forgotten was my mobile phone. Fuck fuck fuck! But other people would be around, I could borrow their phones if needed (I was pretty sure this would be required as I wouldn't be fast enough). I asked the driver if he thought many people would be doing the crossing today. His response was: 'Naw, with this weather? don't expect it will be busy today.' Damn it! My destiny was clearly to die alone and abandoned on this god-forsaken volcano. And what was his point about the weather?' I mentioned I didn't have my phone and he said we should all stick together. But would these strangers stick by me once it had become clear that I was an aged slowcoach? I contemplated the social shame of losing my nerve and refusing to get off.
Arrival; we piled off the bus, and stopped at the toilets where everything i'd ever eaten passed through me. Happily there semed to be some kind of consensus around waiting for everyone, and then the group made off, at a pace known to me as 'hurrying for a bus'. In this first hour of walking uncomfortably fast, it became clear to me that a) some of them wanted to finish the trek with some kind of time-record, and b) I was walking with the wrong people. I had fallen in with a cheerful lad from Knutsford (who later turned out to be a frequent marathon runner), and a chatty girl from the States. They talked non-stop while I pre-occupied myself with breathing, and keeping up.
Eventually the group spread out, and I let them go, finding some new trek buddies. 'TeamDoom' as I'll call us, consisted of me; an inactive 41 yr old stresshead, an incredibly pale dutch 18 year old called Jasmine with low blood pressure, and a speccy fit-looking german girl called Alyssia who was unaccountably slow, but later turned out to have packed 2 days worth of water. In comparison to the easy chatter of the previous lot, TeamDoom trudged along mainly in silence, stopping frequently to catch our breath and reassure each other that it was fine to stop and catch our breath.
We had assumed the ominous grey fog surrounding the peak would dissipate as the morning went on, but we began to climb the first ascent it wasn't budging. We put on waterproof layers as we reached the level of the chilly mist. The wind picked up and we leaned into the steps. Jasmine had to stop a lot on every ascent, which meant freezing waits whilst others overtook us. We were a tight group though, grateful for a more reasonable shared pace, and for as long as Jasmine had a functioning mobile phone I was more than happy to wait for her.
Things were dire by the time we got to the devil's staircase. Alyssia's glasses were both rainy and steamy so she could barely see, and Jasmine had stopped to put socks on her hands as she didn't have any gloves and the cold was biting. The wind was whipping noisily at our waterproofs, leading one nervous guy to think that volcanic activity was beginning. At the top the winds were so strong we were practically on hands and knees and couldn't hear each other. Alyssia worried that mistakes had been made and we shouldn't have been allowed to start the hike given the weather conditions. I reassured her that that certainly wasn't the case, (merely on the basis that we couldn't turn back now, so there wasn't any point worrying about that... I had recovered and was now fairly buoyant now that earlier fears of abandonment were over!).
At the top, a terrifing sight emerged from the mist. Three hikers standing stockstill in a triangle facing each other, holding hands, eyes closed, praying for deliverance. It looked like something from a horror film. (Or did to me, because I am clearly a MASSIVE DRAMA QUEEN on the inside). We asked them if they were ok. One was quite obviously having a massive freak-out, having glimpsed the next section which was 'steep descent'. 'Steep descent' was very narrow, and involved surfing down scree sideways whilst not looking to see how high we were. I quite enjoyed it actually, being much better at it than going up steps.
From here on, things got much better. There were turquoise emerald lakes, the clouds lifted to reveal amazing views, the winds lessened, we realised we would make the bus etc etc. Relief suffused through me. It did however, go on and on and on for a bloody long time. When we finally reached the end we just sat down. We didn't even talk, we were so done in. It felt so delicious, just to be sat on our arses! And once we recovered we we SO PLEASED WITH OURSELVES! TEAMDOOM SURVIVED!
It had been a baptism of fire. And while I couldn't move the next day, I had new legs after that. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.
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