May 17, 2006
The Eye of Mordor
Wow!... We both sighed when we saw the volcano in the Tongariro National park. This is the mountain that acted as Mordor in The Lord of The Rings. But...
...we couldn't get anywhere near the volcano, because there was a huge snowstorm the night before our arrival. The Tongariro crossing is closed till the next season and there's 1m of snow on the trail. Too bad...
We were quite shocked when we woke up and had a look through the window. Everything was covered in snow! Wet and windy, just like Europe.. :) Winter has really caught up with us.. Funnily enough, I started waiting for Christmas... All the roads out of the village were closed in the morning, but the snow started melting quite fast...
We braced ourselves and thanks to wonderful NZ fashion (again!) had a nice walk towards the mountain, nevermind the 75km/h blasting wind.
Its an active volcanic area. There have been eruptions, explotions and different kinds of blasts up till this day. The landscape is still changing and being shaped (everything in NZ is surprisingly new! The British came at the end of 18th century, the Maori, around 12-13th century.. TThings have changed quite a bit in such a short time!).
The view of the volcano was even more striking up there, after we got out of grey blizzard down at the village.
Local people were rubbing their hands because the huge snowstorm made a good foundation for the skiing slopes (skiing season is to open in 1 month!). Are we going to come here again for some slalom/snowboarding fun this winter? :)
Posted by gkligyte at May 17, 2006 01:06 PM