So, when I asked my boys what they wanted to do in New Zealand, the first thing out of their mouths was "Mordor Trail"! As I said before, I had not seen the movies. Had no idea what the Mordor Trail was. So I googled it. This is what I found in a Gadling online article:
So what exactly is Mt. Doom?
Well, to begin, its real name is Mt. Ngauruhoe, it is 7,516 ft. high, and from the best I could tell there aren’t any quivering, flaming black eyes located anywhere near it. While Mt. Ngauruhoe doubled as Mt. Doom, the surrounding bits of Tongariro National Park provided the scenery for Mordor, the fiery and terrifying volcanic wasteland that serves as the home of evil.
As it happens, Tongariro is actually pretty cold, even during the summer months. Lacing up my hiking boots at 6am with about 100 other trekkers, the morning dew had frozen and blanketed the campervan beneath a thin layer of frost.
“Weird”, I thought. “There’s not supposed to be snow in Mordor.”Actually, back here in reality, Tongariro is home to Whakapapa ski field, one of only two areas on the whole North Island of New Zealand which receives enough snowfall to warrant ski lifts and groomed runs. Though Mordor is colder in reality than in the movies, the threat of volcanic eruption is still very real.
Did you see the words? Volcanic wasteland?? My boys wanted to travel all the way to New Zealand and hike in a volcanic wasteland? Yep, that's what they wanted to do. So we did.
There are not too many lodging choices in the Tangariro National Park. We stayed at the Skotel Alpine Resort. Not exactly the Shangri-La, but good location.
This was the view on the morning of the hike. Or rather the non-view.
I had booked a hiking tour with the Adrift company. Link below.
Stewart was wonderful to work with. I e-mailed him ahead of time. The original alpine crossing of this region is a 7-8 hour hike! We didn't want to hike that long, especially since Austin was not fully recovered from his broken ankle. We booked a four-hour hike. And on the morning of the hike, more modifications needed to be made. Stewart didn't know how much we could see due to rain and clouds. We ended up doing 12 km up and back in about 3 1/2 hours.
Stewart did not think my jacket nor Austin's jacket were waterproof enough. He provided us with better rain jackets. They have hiking boots and other hiking gear available. That is really important when you are flying in and don't really know what weather to expect.
We were hiking on an active volcano. Good the know the volcanic risk was only normal.
I believe there are eight 'Great Walks' in New Zealand. This was supposed to be the best one. In good weather.
Stewart, on the left, was employed as a guide for the actors and crew during the filming of the Lord of the Rings movies. Side note: You can do this hike without a guide. The trail is well marked. But we were glad to have him.
The actual "Mt. Doom" was hard to make out behind the clouds.
I got a little teasing from Stewart over my umbrella, but I was glad to have it! :)
The clouds and mist and volcanic rocks certainly made this place feel like Mt. Doom.
There is beauty even in volcanic wasteland.
There was a warning sign before the toughest part of the hike.
Volcanic rocks
We were happy to see a small break in the clouds! If you do the full hike on a clear day, the views are supposed to be amazing. This day, they were just interesting.
They did all the filming for Gollum's waterfall scenes at this waterfall. ... then they found a better waterfall in another part of New Zealand and these scenes were cut.
Although we were not sure what the day would bring, we all really enjoyed the hike! Austin persevered with his sore ankle.
Back to the hotel, where we loaded up to begin our four-hour drive to Wellington. Luckily the rain had stopped and we had another beautiful drive in the NZ countryside.
Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
That evening, we cleaned up and went out in search of some dinner. This was our entertainment for the evening. Did you know that cricket has a World Cup every four years like soccer does? I didn't either. And this year, it was New Zealand vs Australia for the finals!! Needless to say, there were very few people out on the streets. I asked a woman what time the game started. She said 4:30. I asked her about 9:00. We went back to the hotel and watched it till about 11:00. Not sure what time it ended, but New Zealand lost. :/
The next morning we headed to the Wellington airport for our flight to Queenstown. There are studios in Wellington where many of the indoor scenes for LOTR were shot. I looked up from drinking my coffee and this is what I saw!
Then we boarded our New Zealand airline flight. The coolest safety video ever!! I had recorded a minute of it, but I got the whole video on Youtube. It is worth a look!!
Next blog post-- Queenstown!
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