Hiking was very high on our agenda, when we decided what we would do in New Zealand. Friends had completed the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and highly recommended it, even though there were hundreds (sometimes thousands) of hikers on the trail at the same time. To evade the masses, we wanted to do the Tongariro Northern Circuit instead, which is a four day hike which included the highlights of the Alpine Crossing, but with which we could do this part when the masses had not yet started.

Unfortunately, once we arrived in the area, a bad weather front had moved in bringing rain to us and snow to the mountains. Since we were still in the off season it meant that the huts we planned on staying at were not fully operational. So heavy hearted, we started looking into doing the Alpine Crossing instead, to at least get some of the experience. When we checked at the local Visitor Information Center they confirmed our fears by telling us that all hikes were cancelled for the next couple of days, but they also gave us hope, that the forecast for Monday looked very good and it would be likely that it could happen then. So, we rearranged our plans, adding an extra stop at Lake Taupo before heading to the Tongariro National Park for two nights.

On Monday morning at 7:40 am our bus left and at 8:20 am we could start our hike.

The first section was relatively flat, ideal to warm up, and led us towards the base of Mount Ngauruhoe, better known as Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings films.

A short diversion brought us to the lovely Soda Springs.

Then, the first hard section of the day started, the Devils Staircase, about 400 steps and many steep sections brought us up to the South Crater. Up there everything was covered in snow, which gave the area a very special appearance.

Crossing the crater was a breeze, as it was completely flat.

A short ascent brought us to the ridge of the Red Crater, which has the name from the many red rocks that are visible on its flanks.

The first hikers already made their lunch stop here, but we decided to descend to the Emerald Lakes first.

The Emerald Lakes are so called because they shimmer in the most fascinating blue and green tones. However, with the current weather we almost missed the smallest lake completely, because it was entirely covered in ice and snow. Only the largest of the three lakes was mostly snow free and it did shimmer in very bright colors.

Next on our way should have been the Blue Lake, you can guess where it has its name from, however, it too was completely covered in snow.

Then started our long descent back to the finish line. The first part was very strenuous, because the snow wasn’t too stable, and we had to watch out not to lose our footing.

Once we were below the snow line it got easier and we enjoyed breath taking views down into the valley.

The last bit brought us through a lush forest, but by that time we were so tired, that we just wanted to arrive and had stopped taking photos ;).

After 7 hours and 50 minutes we arrived at the end, which is a good time considering that the given time for summer is 7 to 8 hours (not including breaks for lunch and Geocaching).

We were extremely lucky, the conditions were perfect for our walk, blue sky all day, almost no wind at the top (around 20 km/h) and temperatures above 0°C.

Even though we were tired that evening, we felt the positive effects of our training, because the next day we were fit enough to go on another beautiful two-hour hike in the National Park to visit the Taranaki Falls.

At first, we were unsure, whether it would really be a good idea to visit the Hobbiton movie set (David), or whether it would be way too touristy (I, Fe). But then we decided to give it a go. Following advice from a friend we wanted to book one of the last tours of the day, but the weather forecast convinced us that an earlier tour would be better.

Since we drove down from North of Auckland we ended up arriving over an hour too early, so we went for a short walk to a nearby Geocache, which was lovingly hidden behind a hobbit door in a hill, visited the gift shop, which had beautiful post cards, but not much else of interest and then finally checked in. They offered us an “upgrade” to an earlier tour, which we took.

While waiting for our tour to start, it started to rain (so much for the weather forecast!), so we boarded the bus and hoped that it would pass.

Once on site, the rain had stopped again, and we could get our first glimpse of Hobbiton.

For the visitors without havy raincoats huge umbrellas were handed out. Quite handy to hide them on pictures.

Hobbiton was discovered as Peter Jackson and his location scout flew over the area by helicopter. After the filming was finished, only a couple of holes in the hills remained. To everyone’s surprise, after the film became a huge hit, lots of fans wanted to come and visit Hobbiton. However, there was not that much to see. So, when the decision was made to rebuild Hobbiton for the filming of The Hobbit movies, they chose more lasting materials and opened it up to the public once the filming was completed.

At Hobbiton there are about 48 (David says 44, but as I was proofreading, I changed it to a more accurate number) Hobbit holes in various sizes. This was made because the filming leveraged forced perspective that human actors could appear small like Hobbits (for this the houses were built at 100% scale) or as tall as wizards (70 – 80% scale).

The grandest Hobbit hole of all is, of course, Bags End. Unfortunatelly, it is too high above the path to get a superb picture.

But all the others were worth inspecting as well, as everyone was lovingly and distinctly decorated (from the dried fish at the fisher’s hole, to bees at the beekeeper’s and cheese at the Cheese mongers).

The gardens in Hobbiton were also a sight to behold with lots of vegetables and flowers that were currently in season.

After a long and rambling walk through Hobbiton, where we could also look behind one of the doors (there isn’t much there, only outside scenes were filmed here), we headed along a nice path to the Green Dragon, where we could enjoy a complimentary beer and relax for a bit, before the bus took us back to the carpark.

In summary, we were positively surprised. Despite the dozens of tourists, the whole place had a real charming atmosphere, which was helped by our enthusiastic guide. So, we can really recommend visiting Hobbiton.