crazyscot

Mordor, Mount Doom, Taupo, Tokaanu hot springs

On the way to our first stop today we passed the Raumiru railway spiral. It's a curious but practical piece of engineering which works around the crinkly landscape. As well as snaking its way back and forth, the track goes round in a circle and passes under itself in a tunnel; it has to do this in order to give the railway a sensible working gradient. (In the search for the lookout we missed the last sign and ended up going down a slightly scary track; the less said about that the better...)

Our first proper call was the Whakapapa ski field, part-way up Te Heuheu in the Tongariro National Park. Not for the skiing, you understand, but because Peter Jackson used the area as Mordor in the LotR films. It's not difficult to see why - the words rugged and desolate spring to mind. It's also an active volcanic field with warnings posted about the risk of eruptions and mud flows (and what to do if the sirens sound). In the summer they keep a couple of chairlifts and the cafe at 2020m going for sightseers; we couldn't resist. Awesome is not a word to be used lightly, but I'd say it applies here. Igneous rock abounds; old volcanic flows form channels down the mountain.

When we had picked up our jaws we continued on our travels. It was my turn to drive down the hill from the ski village - a positively alpine road with multiple hairpins. Most of the time I just kept the car in 3rd gear and let it carry on at idle. The car's estimate of the range remaining in the tank rose by about 30km from top to bottom!

Back on the main road, we went on to the Mangatepopo mountain hut - it's at one end of the Tongaririo Alpine Crossing which we hope to walk some day. From there we looked up at Ngauruhoe - Mount Doom - whose top was no longer shrouded by cloud, revealing the crater rim. There were some silly photos.

Mid-afternoon now, we pressed on to Taupo in the hopes of getting to see some hot springs. (Aside: Lake Taupo is gorgeous. Must come back here one day.) Disappointingly, we got into Taupo itself around 5pm and everything was already shut for the day.

We went on to look carefully at the map and saw that Tokaanu - on the route back to the motel - had some springs. Thankfully, these were ungated and free to walk around! Steaming sulphurous hot pools, burbling mud pools, this was what were looking for.

And so back to the motel via some food.

Auckland-Hobbiton-Taumaranui

We checked out of our overnight stop this morning to get on the road south. In complete contrast to the previous motel, Grange Lodge in Manukau was brilliant. Very quiet - no traffic or insect noise - very warm welcome, friendly hosts, free wifi(!), complementary home-baked muffins on arrival, ground floor accommodation with parking right outside the door, the list goes on and on. It's a professionally-run operation but not a faceless corporate or chain, if that makes sense.

We stopped en route at a farm near Matamata which was the scene for filming of most of the Hobbiton scenes in the Lord of the Rings films. As it turned out we were particularly fortunate: while the sets were mostly destroyed after the LOTR filming, the crew are back on site at the moment and are rebuilding it all in preparation for The Hobbit, which starts filming later this year. So after the bus took us down the scary gravel farm road, rather than the guides saying "this is the landscape they used, that red post over there is where they had feature Y" we got to actually see Hobbiton itself, right down to the artificially-aged fences. Our guide Benji was full of tales of what he described as LOTR fanatics - including one tourist who spent $$$ on a replica Ring of Power, then $$$$ chartering a helicopter to fly him right over the Mount Doom location and cast the ring into the mountain! (*shakes head*) Unfortunately because of the work ongoing we had to sign our lives away regarding the photos we took, but without it we wouldn't have been allowed in at all.

Edit: Other people are braver than I regarding photos of the set! (Or maybe they relaxed the restrictions after we visited? Who knows...)

Then onwards to Taumaranui via a lunch stop. We passed *even* *more* roadworks on the way - many of which had to have been fixing up the aftermath of the heavy rain and flooding the other day. What amazes me more is the number of roadwork crews that were out there and wondering what they do in the rest of their work time.