canyonwalker | A Busy Day at Tongariro National Park (Reply)

New Zealand Travelog #29
Whakapapa, NZ - Tue, 16 Apr 2024, 4pm

Today we've visited Tongariro National Park in New Zealand. I'm writing a summary of the day right now rather than a trail-by-trail blog because with us having managed 3 hikes plus numerous hop-out-and-take-pictures stops today the latter would span at least 5 journals with photos and would take a few days to publish.

We visited two areas Tongariro. For lack of better obvious names I'll call them the Turoa area and the Whakapapa area. First along the road to Turoa we:

Started from The Hobbit Motor Lodge in Ohakune
Got to the trailhead for Waitonga Falls but it was already cloudy and started raining and decided not to do this 4km hike... yet.
Saw a falls from the roadside we initially thought was Waitonga Falls but wasn't.
Drove to the top of the road at Turoa, where we got above one layer of clouds and caught a few glimpses through the upper cloud layer of 2,797 m (9,177 ft) tall Mount Ruapehu, an active volcano and the tallest mountain on New Zealand's North Island. We also saw a bonus waterfalls near road's end.
Came back down the road into the cloud layer and hiked Mangawhero Falls (Golem’s pool).
Thought again about hiking Waitonga Falls but when the rain intensified as we reached the trailhead decided instead to try our luck elsewhere.

We then drove back down through Ohakune and looped around the west side of the park to reenter via the Whakapapa road. Then we:

Happily caught clear weather on western flank of the mountain. We could see clouds were still hanging heavily over its southern flank.
Hiked Taranaki Falls.
Drove all the way up to road's end at Whakapapa, catching several glimpses of the mountain's triple peak and seeing a bonus waterfalls along the way.
Came back down the road and hiked Tawhai Falls— which is also called Gollum's Pool. I swear, if they try to stick Gollum's name on one more thing in this park they should just rename the damn park to Nasty Hobbitses, We Hates Them National Park.

Yes, it's been a busy day! More blogs with photos will come once I'm caught up with the rest of the trip.

Update: And after all this we still had time for a soak in a natural spring hot tub at our hotel before dinner!

Update 2: added links to other journal entries as I posted them.