A long hard day!

Mount Doom
Originally uploaded by mark&june

If you ever go sky-diving, don't plan on doing something early the next morning!

I was so excited after the sky-dive that I didn't get to sleep until 2.30am. This wouldn't have been a problem if we hadn't planned to walk the Tongariro Crossing the next day, which involved getting up at 5.30 in the morning!

The Tongariro Crossing is described as the best one day hike in New Zealand, and is a 7-8 hour walk through stunning volcanic landscapes. An optional side-track is the climb to the summit of Ngauruhoe volcano, which was made famous as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings. The sign-posts said this would add 3 hours to the walk, but it took us 4 hours to clamber up and slide down it. The climb up was really strenuous and a bit scary - it certainly felt a lot more dangerous than either bungy-jumping or sky-diving! June did amazingly well doing the climb, especially as she suffers from vertigo! It really was a hard-slog getting to the top - if I was Frodo I would have been tempted to put the ring in a drawer and hope for the best.

Although it was great to have reached the summit, there was still another 6 hours of walking ahead of us. Unfortunately my old skiing knee-injury started hurting near the top, and June had a sore ankle, knee and wrist, so the last 15km were a bit of a struggle to say the least! The views were stunning though, and we eventually got back to the car at 7:45pm, after more than 12 hours of walking!

Needless to say we're having a really quiet day today......