PHOTOGRAPHY KNOLL RIDGE CAFE, ISTOCKPHOTO.COM, VISIT RUAPEHU
Explore I RUAPEHU
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Since then we’ve returned for several ski trips at Ruapehu’s twin fields, Whakapapa and Turoa. Combined, they are New Zealand’s largest ski area, and with a major new chairlift whirring into life by next winter there’s even more reason to go. But snow sports, I have discovered, are just the tip of the iceberg. One of New Zealand’s nine great walks, the three- to fourday, intermediate level Tongariro Northern Circuit, circumnavigates Mount Ngauruhoe, taking in a sizable stretch of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing – regularly touted as one of New Zealand’s finest daywalks. Both trails boast a wide array of eerie landforms such as moonlike craters, fumeroles and the surreal Emerald Lakes. A tough climb up to the crater rim of Ngauruhoe – the mountain that starred as Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings – is topped by a viewpoint that is nothing short of mind-blowing. There are many other hikes up, down and around the mountains, including a guided hike to Ruapehu’s crater lake that takes a welcome shortcut, via the Whakapapa chairlifts, to an altitude of 2020m where New Zealand’s highest café clings to a rocky ridge. When we attempted the hike this autumn, the groovy, glass-fronted café proved a neat place to hang out after our climb was cut short by creeping cloud cover. Tongariro’s steaming vents and craters are just part of the picture, with otherworldly oddities revealed throughout the national park. As well as ancient lava flows, alpine herb fields and dazzling waterfalls, there are pockets of forest still regenerating from eruptions past. Ohakune’s Old Coach Road, on Ruapehu’s southern slopes, is another great place to spy a
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