We managed to get up without disturbing Mike and James and meet our new bus driver, Motors, in plenty of time and, after a few more pick ups, we were on our way! This is a horrible travel day for those heading straight through to Auckland as it takes about 11 hours! Luckily for us, we had decided to hop off at National Park for a couple of days which breaks the journey in half! Everyone was pretty tired, so the bus was unusually subdued and most people slept the whole way. It was about 11am when we reached National Park and hopped off the bus into the wilderness.
 
The Tongariro National Park was New Zealand's first National Park, and is a World Heritage Area . The park was created in 1887 when the three volcanoes (Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe) were gifted to the people of New Zealand by the paramount chief of the Ngati Tuwharetoa tribe. Ruapehu is the most active of the volcanoes. It has a simmering crater lake and its last big eruption was in 1996 when it showered most of the central North Island in ash. There was another, smaller eruption in November 2012 so we were secretly hoping to see one while we were there!
 
The main reason for us stopping here was a trek we had heard about called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This crossing is rated as one of the world's best one day walks but it is not to be taken lightly due to its remoteness, length and height above sea level. The walk is about 22.5km long and takes about 6-7 hours, it crosses the National Park's scenically amazing volcanic plateau complete with steaming craters! All of this set alarms bells ringing in my head but, of course, Matt was super excited and couldn't wait to get started! Most of the walks we've done have been up to 6 or 7km with only the Abel Tasman walk going over that at 12 .5km so 22km was bound to be a bit of a scary thought, but we'd met other people that had done it and said its doable.
 
As the walk takes so long, you have to set off by 7am so it was too late by the time we arrived. Instead, we checked in to our lodge and went for a walk around the town. This walk didn't take very long at all as the town is tiny and basically consists of one road with a couple of hotels, a cafe, post office and garage! We were able to get a few photos of the volcanoes including the one Peter Jackson used as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. They really were very impressive so it made Matt even more excited to get walking. In the afternoon, the weather began to turn so we made our way back to the lodge and enjoyed a relaxing hour or so in the hot tub before starting to plan our trek. This was when disappointment struck! You have to arrange for someone to pick you up and drive you to the start point, they then meet you at the end point about 7 hours later and bring you back to your accommodation. This has been set up so the authorities can keep track of who is up on the volcano and so they have some control over when people can and can't complete the trek due to the weather conditions (if the weather is bad, none of the transport operators run so you can't get to the track!) . When we called the man who picks up from our accommodation, he informed us that the weather forecast for the following day was pretty bad so, as it stood, we wouldn't be able to do the trek! To say Matt was devastated would be a understatement! Obviously I was disappointed as well but very slightly relieved at the same time. The man said he would check the forecast again later and make a final decision then but it wasn't looking good as the weather had already turned up on the volcano and the people currently doing the trek were finding it difficult as the visibility was bad and it was very cold! After the hustle and bustle of Wellington, we had been looking forward to a bit of rest and relaxation but not quite as much as we were suddenly faced with! Sure enough, when we spoke to the man later on, no trips were going ahead, in fact even the guided ones had been cancelled as the conditions were forecast to be so bad!
 
The following day Matt woke up to look out of the window praying but it wasn't to be as it was pouring with rain, very windy, freezing cold and generally very gloomy so instead of getting up early to go on the walk, we had a lovely long lay in, took ages in the shower and enjoyed a longer than normal breakfast! We then spent the day catching up on blogs, writing postcards and generally chilling out! I was excited to discover Coronation Street was on the TV, even though it was an episode from about 3 years ago! It was all very quiet as we were the only people in the hostel so we kept the fire alight to keep ourselves warm . We popped out into the rain for a little walk to stretch our legs as Matt was really struggling sitting around all day, and you could barely see the volcanoes, unlike the day before when they had been so clear! It was very cold so we were definitely glad we weren't up the volcanoes as it would have been awful up there. The forecast for the following day (the day we were leaving!) was much of the same which was unfortunate for another couple we'd met who hoping to do the walk then, but even more to our annoyance when we woke up it was a perfectly sunny clear day and all trips were going ahead, so this did nothing to help Matt's mood as we couldn't believe that it had only poured with rain the one day we were there. The annoying thing was if the Stray buses ran more regularly we could have stayed another day and done it then but as they only go past every 2 days, we had to leave or we wouldn't get to Auckland in time for our flight to Hawaii!
 
The National Park certainly is a lovely, scenic place and we'd recommend anyone stopping here to do the walk but sadly it just wasn't meant to be for us.