Tongariro Crossing

I came to New Zealand because of Lord of the Rings. Saying so feels very cliché, trite, predictable – and worst of all – touristy. I’ve tried to work around this conclusion, but it’s inevitably true.  To clarify: I’m not referring to old J.R.R.’s books (which I have read) but to Peter Jackson’s filmed adaptation, which was my introduction to New Zealand. It can be argued that the country herself was the star of those films; her beauty finally done justice on the silver screen to the tune of billions of moviegoers’ dollars, followed by a surge of tourism – a thousand ships launched for her.

Growing up, I was more captivated by Australia, thanks to films like Crocodile Dundee, The Rescuers Down Under and The Man from Snowy River. I was aware of New Zealand’s existence, but in my adolescent mind it seemed an annex of Australia, a place to visit on your way out of Oz, if you had the time. This changed after seeing Lord of the Rings in the cinema – what landscape! what diversity! and all on two small islands? My paradigm had shifted.

With this in mind, you might be able to understand my excitement as I set out on the Tongariro Crossing. Not only is it deemed one of New Zealand’s Twelve Great Walks, but it served as Mr. Jackson’s Mordor in the films. As I hiked through the volcanic terrain, I was impressed by the otherworldly landscape and found myself trying to recognize shots from the films.  I was drinking a strange brew of nature-high and movie geek wonder.

The hike itself was pretty strenuous; it took seven hours to cross 19.4 kilometers with 1600+ meters of elevation change, and we only summitted Mt. Tongariro, leaving Mt. Doom to the more equipped.  As we made our slow descent north, my fifty year old knees began to twinge with tendonitis and I cursed myself for all the triple jumping, ultimate playing and trampoline dismounting I’d beaten them with.  After kilometers of volcanic rock, red and yellow craters, sulfurous blue pools, the trail wound its final length through a lush rainforests, crisscrossing a bubbling stream.

For more pictures of my hike, click here.

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