Tag Archives: mount doom

Image of SH1 to Turangi

Climbing Mount Ruapehu – NZ’s highest volcano

By now you may already know that I’m attracted by mountains, so it should come at no surprise that I looked at Ruapehu a few times and thought: “Why the hell not?” While it has been a few months already, here’s a little insight into the climb of Tongariro National Park’s uncrowned king. As it turned out, it is much easier than Mt Ngauruhoe (known as “Mt Doom” from Lord of the Rings – more on this beast another time) and well worth the effort. Continue reading

On the way through NZ, part 8: Tongariro National Park

Arriving in National Park Village, which is located in the centre of the North Island, was my personal first highlight – I looked much forward to see the impressive, alien landscape the three (still active!) volcanoes formed in the Tongariro National Park, one of the places most worth visiting when travelling this particular part of NZ. This settlement lives almost purely from the tourists visiting the National Park, of which almost everybody is planning to do the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a well-built hiking walkway over the alpine pass formed by Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro. Of course this was our goal as well, so we arranged transport by the hostel we stayed at and went to bed early the day before. Continue reading