New Zealand Day 3

Monday, Dec. 16th

Tongariro Alpine Crossing

After waking up, eat a camping meal type breakfast, and packing our bags, we headed up the trail to the campground. Finding a spot was easy, we had pretty much every site to pick from. There was a communal cabin with bunk rooms and a kitchen area (prep counters, gas burners, a sink, and tables with benches). There was also a bathroom and we didn't expect to have there either. Kind of a neat place.

Packed peace meal lunch for the trail and headed up the mountain. This hike or "track" is called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Its is considered to be the world's best day hike because of the ever changing terrain of desert, mountain peaks, geothermal activity, lakes, and the alpine forest.

Funny story, with all the research we did for our trip, we couldn't find a form of transportation that could take us from the end of the trail back to the beginning. It would be a two hike if we did the whole thing going out and back. So our plan then, was to go the the lakes on the far side of the peak and then turn around. Once we got up to the top though, we met a man who was actually from California and had at one time lived in Scott's Valley (one town over from where Jaime grew up). He told us about a shuttle service he was going to catch to get back to the trail head and said we would probably be able to join the ride. If not, he so kindly to offer to come back to give us a ride. So, with that in mind we went ahead and hiked the whole track and were fortunate to fins space on the shuttle and the right amount of cash to pay for our ride. God worked that one out for us!

We were so pooped when we got back to our campsite. Ate a dehydrated meal for dinner, which was surprisingly really tasty. Then we had an early bed time.

*Interesting thing we discovered; how far south New Zealand is, the sun didn't seem to go away till really late. It was light out till 10:30, which kind of threw off our sleep schedule, despite the time change and being ahead a day from Cali.