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The Tongariro Crossing
Posted Tuesday, 19 June 2007
According to the blurb this is one of the finest one-day walks in the world. Perfect weather conditions are unlikely but not impossible in the winter, and they’d mainly consist of clear skies and a gentle breeze.

We did it in 50kph winds, freezing fog and relentlessly hammering rain. Ria's gloves got wet, turning her hands into frozen claws, and all of our boots leaked. (It seems gore-tex is no match for a storm on a volcano.) We literally couldn’t see a thing, although the postcards of it look amazing and at least we can say we hiked through the crater of a volcano even if it just looked like black sand at the time. The hike also took us up part of the side of Mt Doom (from Lord of the Rings), but we couldn’t see that either. Shame, really.
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