Lake Waikaremoana

, originally uploaded by Tom@North.

Early tuesday morning I got the ferry back to the North Island. My plan was to spend the last week in the Tongariro National Park to walk the Northern Circuit (which includes the famous Tongariro Crossing), a three to four day tramp. I arrived late afternoon in the National Park village and checked into the hostel and prepared for the tramp.

On the next morning however it was all dark, cloudy and wet when I looked outside the window. The DOC office had a weather report for that day and the next few days that sounded awful: cloudy and drizzly at first, changing to gale force winds and snow at 1200m and above and 800m and above for the day after (the village and the start of the track are at about 1100m, the Tongariro summit at 1800m and the other mountain that I intended to climb at 2200m).

The DOC guys actually closed the National Park until saturday. So I had no other options but to go somewhere else. But where? More Mountains and rain in the west, Rotorua and the hot springs and geothermic areas in the north and Hawke's Bay and Wine tasting in the east. I choose the latter :)

Arriving in Napier in Hawke's Bay it was actually sunny and very warm, after driving through this miserable weather. It was so warm that I put on my shorts and a t-shirt. Perfect day for wine tasting :) There are more than 30 of them in that area and I managed only like 4 or 5. Reading through the Lonely Planet I noticed that there's another Great Walk not far from Napier: Lake Waikaremoana. It's a circuit around a large lake, not too many mountains but apparently very scenic. And that's where I went to on thursday morning.

Unfortunately it was all rainy and wet again, but I didn't mind - the track wasn't much more dangerous in wet conditions, apart from some slippery parts.

I started the track at around 3pm and walked for 3.5 hours through the lashing rain to the hut. I arrived about half an hour before dusk, completely soaked. Unfortunately I couldn't see much on the track because of the rain. The hut was completely full and nice and warm when I arrived. Great to dry up and get warm again.

The next day I was on the track again at 8am, the sun was shining and only very few clouds. The forest looked great, with the sun shining through the trees, with water dripping from the leaves. There was also a very very nice waterfall on the way which took a one hour detour.

However it started raining again in the afternoon, and after 7 hours of hiking in total I arrived at the hut, totally wet again. That night there were only 6 people staying in the hut, nice and cosy. There was a family with two kids (the kids are on school holidays here in NZ at the moment) whom I played cards with; I lost most of the time though.

The third day, saturday (today) I started again at 8am and it was all sunny again. Very cold at the start though - it was very cold at night as well. There was mist on the lake in the early morning, where the sun shone on it. A beautiful sight...
About 4.5 hours of walking and I arrived at the beach where I got picked up at 12.30pm by the water taxi which I've booked before. After 20 minutes on the lake I was back at the car.
After buying some cookies (which I well deserved!) I headed for Rotorua to stay there for the night. That's where I am now!

Tomorrow I'll arrive in Auckland and return the car on monday morning. Tuesday is my flight back home, but I'll post a last blog entry before that. See you then!!!

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Das Internetcafe schliesst leider gerade, von daher werde ich morgen das nochmal auf Deutsch schreiben!!

Viele Gruesse,
Tom