Me getting on Kieran's school bus!
I was kindly asked to go along on the school camp with my son's school. It turned out I was the only parent there along with 4 teaching staff.
The first day of the trip saw me boarding the school bus with Kieran, loaded with our stuff for the camping trip. Arriving at his school, we saw lots of other parties getting ready for their respective trips, diving, fishing, mountain biking amongst others. We had 2 mini buses with trailers. One was an enclosed trailer, the other belonged to one of the staff and was a real Heath Robinson affair, with all sorts of attachments and gizmos attached. This teacher is a bit of a tinkerer, and his gadgets, although the butt of our jokes, were really great to have on camp.
We set off in bright sunshine, heading down the main highway to our first stop at Lake Taupo. A bit of morning tea and a leg stretch, then on our way down the eastern shore of the lake. We had a stop at a trout hatchery at the southern end of the lake, a convenient place to soak up the sun and have our lunch.
Refreshed, we continued on our journey south to the Tongariro National Park, passing through some stunning alpine countryside. Our destination was Mangahuia camp site at the base of Mount Ruapehu. Once at the camp we quickly tasked the boys to start setting up their tents and sorting out the equipment. This was done with the minimum of fuss, a really great effort by the boys, some of which had never camped before.
A journey up to the information centre on Ruapehu then a drive up Bruce Road to Happy Valley ski field (without snow!) for a leisurely walk up the hill to look down in to the valley and over to a cloud covered Mount Ngauruhoe - or Mount Doom as Lord of the Rings fans know it. A brisk walk down to the vans, then back to camp to prepare dinner and plan the events for the next day. The weather was closing in so it was not looking good for the Tongariro crossing. As it started to rain, we shelved the idea until the morning and went to bed after a hot drink and a light bite.
Tuesday morning saw a misty and wet start to the day. The mountains were covered with cloud and the forecast wasn't looking too good. A decision was made to shelve the crossing and head in another direction. We ended up going south towards Ohakune and went on a walk along an old coaching route. It was very interesting, ending up at a gorge with a large rail bridge spanning the whole valley. The Hapuawhenua (translated as pregnant uterus) Viaduct towers 43m over the valley and is a marvel of engineering. Climbing under part of the bridge I noticed the steel came from Middlesbrough in England. The river bed at the base was where the local Iwi - Maori families - used to give birth to their children. Some information is contained in this link ....
After lunch on the viaduct, we headed in to Ohakune then on up the road towards Turangi ski field. There is another track that leads to a fantastic waterfall. Waitonga falls drop 39 metres in to a small valley on the side of Mount Ruapehu. Although there wasn't much water flowing over, it was still a great place to trek to, a bonus being the myriad of flora and fauna encountered en route, and the freshwater springs that flow out of the rock, cascading down over moss covered rocks. Unfortunately, I took a fall and the camera bought it... not a good thing especially as we had the majority of the walks ahead of us. More information on the walk is available here.
We returned to the town for a toilet visit for the boys and a quick bit of shopping that was required. A BBQ at camp and a bit of time for the boys to do their stuff preceded an early night for the main event of the trip - the Tongariro crossing. All the signs were looking good as far as weather was concerned, so we prepared all our packs for the following day. We were splitting in to two parties, one going the more "difficult" route and my party going to so called "easier" route from Ketetahi. Van keys would be swapped half way as long as everything went to plan.
The Tongariro Crossing will be covered in a separate blog.
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