dscn6247A day off in a ski town, the Old Coach Road cycle track and a spot of hiking over active volcanoes on the Tongariro Crossing would be the highlights of my next few days on the North Island of New Zealand.

The night before I had arrived in the dark at the town of Ohakune after finishing a 64km section of the Mountain to Sea cycle trail. The only problem was that I was going the wrong way and had spent the final 27km climbing up the mountain as I went from 60m above sea level to nearly 800m.

I had camped at a D.O.C site on the edge of town and when I woke up I had the place to myself.  It was time for a well-deserved day off and I planned on going nowhere that day apart from cycling the 3km back down the mountain road to the town centre to do a few jobs that I needed to get done.

dscn6115

The morning was bathed in sunshine and I took full advantage of it after the last few days of rain.  First job after breakfast was to get a pan of water boiling to have a wash and as there was nobody else there I just stripped off in the middle of the field and lathered up.

dscn6120

Even though I was going to spend a second night at the D.O.C site I still needed to pack my tent and equipment up as the site was essentially a field in the middle of a wooded area that anybody could access.

The first job on the agenda when I got to town was to get a haircut and shave as I had been in New Zealand for nearly 7 weeks and had so far not been to a hairdressers.

They could fit me in an hours time so I booked an appointment and asked if there was wifi in the town.  The receptionist said that the library had wifi and even though it was closed at the weekend they left the router on and the password was on the front door.

I headed there to upload my latest trip update to my website until my appointment

dscn6121

It was then time to head back to get a trim at the hairdressers

dscn6123

The next item that I needed to tick of was to find a nice place or lunch.  Ohakune is a ski resort town which is located at the base of Mount Ruapehu.  As is normal for these types of towns there is a plethora of choices for the après ski crowd, and even though it was heading towards summer they were all still open and catering to the mountain bike crowd that seemed to have descended on the town.

On the recommendation of the hairdresser I chose a place called Eats which served food with a poncey Mexican theme.

dscn6124

I chose a fully loaded breakfast burrito which included homemade chorizo sausage and it was one of the tastiest meals that I had had in a long time.  I love good food and this was up there with the best.

It was then time to head to the supermarket to stock up on food as I was planning on heading back off road when I left the following day and would then cycle into the National Park to do a spot of hiking.

dscn6130

This was probably my last proper supermarket opportunity until after I had hiked the 20km Tongariro Crossing which would see me descend into a volcanic crater.

After collecting the supermarket I found a bike shop to pick up some trail maps for the Old Coach Road trail that I planned on cycling the next day and took the opportunity to borrow one of their bike pumps to add a few Psi to my tyres.

dscn6129

It still remains a mystery to me how a bike tyre can lose pressure over time without actually having a puncture.

There was only 1 job left to do now that I had caught up on my blog, got a haircut, done the shopping and had a poncey lunch and that was to have a beer.

I found a little bar which had a terrace that looked out on Mount Ruapehu and ordered a Tuatara beer that Simon had introduced me to during my stay with him in Wellington.

dscn6125

The café closed at 4pm and they started cleaning down around 15 minutes before closing.  I was the only person using the upstairs area and a guy from a commercial cleaning company came up to mop the floors.  We got talking and it turned out that Brian had spent 10 years on a bike cycling his way around the world.  I don’t think that there was one are of the world that he had not visited in his time on a bike.  He said that he had given it up as he had seen all the places that he wanted and basically got bored of living out of a tent and wanted some normality in his life.

He had some great stories and it would have been great to have sat down with him for a beer but he had a full night ahead of him cleaning different businesses around the town.

I fancied another beer and Brian said to head to the backpackers as they had a happy hour until 6pm.

dscn6127

Once the happy hour finished it was time to head back up the mountain road to the D.O.C campsite and make dinner.

dscn6128

It was so tempting to just stay in town and have dinner but the cost of all the beers and meals adds up over the course of a year so I did the sensible thing and cooked for myself back at the campsite that for the second night running I had to myself.

I had really enjoyed my day off and when I got up the next morning I was looking forward to the days cycling ahead.  There are times when tour cycling can seem a bit like a hamster on a wheel where one day on a bike just blends into the next and I have found that I need to take a day off every 4 days just to take some time to appreciate a bit of life off the bike.  Of course I miss my wife but I can’t say that I have been lonely on the bike as ther are always people around.  I do get into a kind of pattern though where I need to stop and talk to people about something other than cycling once a week.

Now that box was ticked I could happily head back into the mountains for another 4 or 5 days without talking to a soul and be happy as Larry as the saying goes.

My plan when I left that morning was to cycle the Old Coach Road track and then cycle to Tongariro National Park by nightfall.

I had seen the start of the track as I cycled into Ohakune the day before and it was only a 2 minute cycle from the D.O.C campsite.

dscn6133

The track started with a gravel section through farmland and it was nice to be back off road and away from passing cars and trucks.

dscn6135

As the track was an old coach road once it started climbing up into the hills I was cycling on the original cobble stones that had been laid down when the track had been opened in 1906.

dscn6136

The coach road was originally built to connect the railway stations of Ohakune and Makatote which lay in different valleys.  However, by the end of 1908 the railway line between the two towns was finally finished and the first passenger train ran on a continuous track from Wellington to Auckland. Coaches carrying railway passengers were no longer needed and the coach road was abandoned until it was recently resurrected as a mountain bike track.

Once again I was cycling the wrong way up the track and would see me climbing for most of the tracks length.

dscn6137

The stone section finished after a few kilometers and I was then essentially cycling through a field as the uphill section turned to grass.

dscn6143

The sky was blue though and as there had been no rain now for a couple of days I had enough traction to get to the top of the hill without any difficulty.

dscn6141

The next section took me through a wooded area that was totally different to the pine forests that I had cycled through since arriving on the North Island.

dscn6146

I have no idea what type of trees these were but they were very hairy.

After winding it’s way through the forest the track descended out into the valley on the other side where there was a viaduct which saved me having to descend into the valley and climb up the other side.

dscn6153

The viaduct was the original railway crossing and you could see where the tracks had been removed from the wooden planks which spanned the centre of the viaduct.

dscn6157

The wooden and iron viaduct had been replaced by a new concrete version which ran parallel to the one that I was cycling on.

dscn6158

It was then time to cycle back into the forest and head back uphill to the high point of the track which took me to nearly 800m where I had a great view of the surrounding area.

dscn6162

It was then payback time for the climbing that I had done as I followed a stream back down the hill towards the town of Horopito.

dscn6165

The track followed the stream at the bottom of the valley rather than the ridgeline at the top and went under more of the original viaduct sections that had been built to support the railway as it criss-crossed the valleys.

dscn6167

I then had to cross the modern railway line for one final time before I came out at the village of Horopito.

dscn6169

The Old Coach Road was a great track that had packed in so much.  There were hills, forests, viaducts, fields and as probably the best of all were the views along the way.  It had been a great ride and unexpected since I had planned on cycling the Mountain to Sea track rather than this one until they had tried to charge me 90 NZD for a boat transfer at the halfway stage of the track (Click Here).

Here is a video that I shot to give you a flavor of the different landscape that you cycle through on the Old Coach Road.

I now had a 45km road section that would take me into the Tongariro National Park where I would spend Tongariro Crossing was a 20km transect rather than a loop and I also I would need to leave my bike somewhere safe.

The guys at the bike shop that I had talked to the day before had given me the number of a campsite that could arrange transfers to and from the Tongariro Crossing.  I phoned them and they said that the bus would leave for the crossing at 5.30am and there were returns from 12.30pm and then every hour after that.

It would mean an early start but hopefully this would mean that I could beat the crowds on the trail and as they said that they could look after my bike for me I booked the ride with them for the following morning.

I asked about camping options in the area and the guy on the phone said that there was a free D.O.C. site a couple of kilometers from where I would pick up the bus in the morning.  In the space of a 5 minute phone call my hike was now planned and my map showed that I had a 45km cycle to the D.O.C. site.

After 40km there was a pub and a shop so I called into the shop to buy some bread and ham to take with me on the hike the next day and then into the pub for a pint.  I also took advantage of their electricity to charge up my watch, camera and phone.

dscn6175

It was getting dark by the time that I left and for the first time as I cycled into the National Park I could see Mount Ruapehu which had for the last few days been hidden behind cloud.

dscn6177

The Tongariro National Park is the oldest in New Zealand and covers an area of around 800 km2 and sits smack bang in the centre of the North Island with Mount Ruapehu at it’s very centre.  If you look at my route on a map I had skirted around the perimeter of Tongariro National Park and if you imagine a clock face I had gone from about the 6 0’Clock position until nearly midnight.  This is because all private vehicles, and even bicycles, are banned from entering the National Park except on designated access roads of which none cross the very centre of the park area.

After 5km I found the gravel road entrance to the D.O.C site and once again had to set my tent up in the dark.

dscn6178

As it was so late and I had to be back up at 4.30am I just had a bowl of porridge for dinner and got my head down for the night.

A few hours later I was back up and for the first time I had to pack my tent away in the dark which wasn’t as difficult as it sounded as the night before I had only opened my panniers to take out my sleeping bag.

As this D.O.C. site is the primary free base for hikers and climbers in the National Park there is a basic kitchen area at the campsite and I headed here to cook my porridge.

dscn6180

My cooker is designed to burn all types of fuel from petrol to meths but the one thing it isn’t is quiet and at 4.30am it sounded like a jet engine firing up.

After a quick feed and a coffee I cycled the two kilometers to where I would be meeting the transport that would take me to the start of the trail and by 5.30am there were about 10 of us waiting for the bus to take us into the park.  When the driver turned up he checked our names off his list and checked that we all had wet weather gear and phones with us just in case the weather changed.  Once satisfied he loaded everybody on the bus before putting my bike into the ski shed for safe keeping until I got back off the hike.

It was a 15 minute transfer to the start point of the hike which is known locally as the Tongariro Crossing.  The hike is 19.4km long and crosses over the volcanic terrain of the multi-cratered active volcano Mount Tongariro and passes the eastern base of Mount Ngauruhoe.

As we got off the bus the driver handed out maps of the area just in case the cloud descended and we got lost.  It sounds crazy but it is so easy to do.  I remember hiking in the Cairngorms with a friend a few years ago and we deviated from our planned route to cross a river that was in spate and the clouds descended to shroud us in fog.  We basically just had to descend out of the fog and when it got dark follow the lights at the bottom of the valley to find our way off the mountain.  We ended up coming down a near vertical scree slope to get back to the car park where we had left the car.

On the back of the map was a quote from Lonely Planet which said that the Crossing was one of New Zealand’s life-changing experiences and that the pulsating volcanic landscape was rated as the world’s finest day hike.  Bold claims if there ever was but it sounded like I was in for a treat on the 19.4 km hike that lay in front of me.

dscn6183

There was an information point at the start of the trek but I didn’t stop to read it as I wanted to get in front of the rest of the bus so that I had a clear path ahead of me.

The first part of the hike in was along a gravel path that wound its way through the valley following the Mangatepopo Stream that drained off the volcano that we were about to climb up into.

dscn6200

On the ground in this section was a blanket of some type of white moss that made it look like it had snowed

dscn6191

dscn6192

The valley narrowed after a couple of kilometers and for the first time you could appreciate the size of the volcanic hills that I would soon have to climb over.

dscn6190

At the 4km mark the path started to climb up over a historic lava field and all around were volcanic ‘bombs’ that had literally been fired out of the volcano during the last eruption.

dscn6196

As I made my way through the lava field I saw for the first time the crater wall that I would have to climb up and over and it looked mighty impressive from where I was stood.

dscn6219

There was a sign on the track here that had a profile of the climb ahead and warned people to consider whether they were fit enough to make the crossing.

dscn6215

As you can see from the profile above the climb started at 1100m and I was now stood a the 1400 m mark. IN the next cuple of kilometers the path would rise steeply to its peak at just over 1900m and would take me through the very heart of the crater of the volcano. An amazing prospect thing to look forward to if you needed any motivation to make the steep climb.

I headed up the steep path which would take me up and over the rim of the crater and now that I was climbing off the valley floor I could appreciate the sheer barreness of the valley that I had hiked in through.

dscn6222

As I climbed up the crater wall I could touch the clouds above me

dscn6228

Once I had reached the rim of the crater I was at 1650 m and was now in the clouds as the view back down the valley completely disappeared

dscn6232

dscn6235

I then descended down into the crater  and after a few minutes I was stood on the thin crust that had formed like a skin over the bubbling lava below.

dscn6255It was an amazing feeling to be stood on the flat surface of the pancake surface of the solidified magma crust which was the last volcano in this mountain chain to have erupted.

dscn6243

Behind me was Mount Ngauruhoe which is widely predicted to be the next peak to blow as it continues to rise above the landscape.

dscn6247

It was then time to climb out of the crater and upto the highest point of the Tongariro Crossing.   The climb out was much harder than the hike up as the surface was just loose volcanic rock with no real pathway to follow

dscn6268

Once I had crested to the top I was on the rim I was once again back in the clouds

dscn6271

The clouds would blow through though and when they did from this vantage point Mount Ngauruhoe looked even more magnificent than it had when I had been stood on the surface of the crater.

dscn6261

There was a distinct smell of sulhur in the air now and when I looked over the other edge of the crater rim I could see the source of the smell as down on the other side were a series of lakes and around the edges of the lakes I could see sulphur vents steaming away.

dscn6275

I descended down the scree slope to the beautiful turquoise lakes below

dscn6277

When I reached the edge of the first lake I could clearly hear the water boiling just below the surface as the steam and sulphur erupted out of the rocks.

dscn6286

From here you could see the dramatic charred rocks in the scree slope that I had descended down to get to the lakes.

dscn6282

There was just time for a couple more selfies by the lakes before the stench of the sulphur drove me away from the edge of the acidic lakes.

It was now time for a spot of food and so I descended another 100m away from the lakes into an area known as central crater.

dscn6293

I sat on a rock and made myself ham sandwiches from the supplies that I had picked up from the shop on my way into the National Park.

The view back in the direction that I had just hiked from was probably the most dramatic of all of the pictures that I took that day.

dscn6294

If a single picture could tell the history and future of this volcanic park then this one was it.  The volcano in the foreground is known as red crater which last exploded in 1926 and is still active today.  In the background is the peak of Mount Ngauruhoe which will certainly erupt at some point in the future. A fitting last look at the volcanoes before it was time for me to make my way down to the pick up point which lay a further 6km down the mountain.

As I descended it was much colder on this side of the mountain as the slope was facing south east and received the least amount of sun.  I put my gloves and hat back on and as I descended I crossed the snow line which is always a pretty surreal experience.

dscn6298

As I descended back down the valley towards my exit point at Ketetahi car park I passed through the cloud layer.

dscn6302

On my way down a helicopter was flying up to drop off the lazy tourists who couldn’t be bothered to hike up.

dscn6304

Once I had descended back below the cloud level I had a fantastic view of Lake Rotoaira and now the air around me was once again warm and the sun even made an appearance which brought out the shades.

dscn6307

I still had an hours walk down to the pick up point and it was here that I started to pass a steady stream of people as they hiked their way up to the crater that I had just descended from.  This was the advantage of getting up at 4.30am as I had seen nobody else on the volcano except a couple of the people that I had caught the bus with that morning.

Here is a video I shot along the way:

I arrived at the car park at 11.30am and had an hour to wait for the first shuttle of the day to take me back to my bike.  I found a long table in the picnic area at the end of the path and lay down on the bench.  The next thing I knew one of the other passengers that I had caught the bus with that morning was waking me up to tell me that the shuttle was waiting.

Whether my hike across the Tangariro Crossing was a life changing moment as stated by lonely planet I’m not sure but for me it was the highlight so far of my time on the north island.  The south island has the better cycling but the north has the volcanic parks that are something that for me as a Geographer is a landscape that cannot be beaten.

If you would like to automatically receive all future posts straight to your email inbox please just add your details to the form at the foot of this page.

The Volcanic Heart of North Island, New Zealand
Tagged on:                             

One thought on “The Volcanic Heart of North Island, New Zealand

  • December 13, 2016 at 11:32 pm
    Permalink

    Photos are breath-taking.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *