Got back late last night from my Tongariro Crossing
Drove down on the Monday, took 4 and a half hours. Stayed at a campground not too far away from the beginning of the track. The next morning, woke up at 4.30 to catch a shuttle at 5.45 to the beginning of the track. One of the earliest I've ever woken up (I've been awake at that time plenty of times but normally from having stayed up in town...).
It's a pretty beautiful hike. Lots of hills though so it was pretty tiring. I really hate the stairs. We decided to walk up
Mt Ngauruhoe (known by non-NZers as Mount Doom). It's 2291m tall, and pretty steep so we were climbing up in parts. Heaps of snow everywhere too. Took about an hour and a half to get up. At the top there's lots of snow as well so we had a bit of fun sliding around on it. We also decided to slide/run down the mountain on the small loose rocks everywhere. It's quite an interesting way to get down a mountain.
By that point we were running behind, and at our speed we were going beforehand wouldn't make it to the shuttle on time. Since I was the slowest one, One of my friends stayed with me and we went a bit slower, while the other two went ahead so they would make the shuttle in time. They would then drive back to pick us up after. There was still something like 13km left at that point. Lots more climbing, but some amazing views from the top. I've included two photos below, if you have me on Facebook (some of you do), then you can see a few more.
The last 10km of the track is pretty easy though, mostly down hill. Not as good views as the earlier part of the track, but some nice ones of the lakes. The track ends in about 3km of forrest which is quite nice. The main problem I found is that going down-hill is pretty tough on your knees, especially the steps. I'm aching quite a lot today
Overall, 11 hours on the crossing, probably about 25km walked, including across a desert and up a pretty tall and steep mountain. Was pretty cool.