8.30am. The shuttle driver warns of how hard the next few hours will be, briefly describes the challenges we’ll face, and asks us to use the toilets now available along the route and not just hop off the path as: you wouldn’t do it in your own home, please don’t do it in ours. He […]
Tag: Tongariro
Tongariro Alpine Crossing: Part One
In the seventies, travel guide Lonely Planet described the Tongariro Crossing as the best day walk in New Zealand. No one will argue much; it’s a walk through an amazing landscape with stunning views, amazing landforms and jewelled lakes. But there are a couple of caveats: one is a claim that limited time meant the […]
Beasties: Part Two
WARNING: This post contains images and descriptions of pest animal trapping. If this distresses you, please do not read on. When the chunk of land that became the islands of New Zealand broke away from the great southern continent of Gondwana seventy million years ago, it wasn’t just the nasty beasties that stayed on the […]
Reflections
One of our regular walks (Waitonga Falls: https://purplehippo.blog/2020/06/12/on-the-mountain-waitonga-falls/ ) provided us with a pleasant surprise on Christmas Eve. As it had the day before, the sun shone from a clear blue sky, so we left early for a quick walk before its heat made anything more than a snail’s pace unbearable. Within the trees it […]
Waitonga Falls – Revisited
I miss snow. Growing up in Stocksbridge, Yorkshire, there were few winters we didn’t get a couple of good dumps and snowy streets were a regular sight. It was normal that cars would sit unused for part of the season, a thick layer of white frozen onto them. One year it was over three feet […]
On The Mountain: Waitonga Falls
I love walking in the open where I can see for miles. Despite the incredible vistas to be found here there’s not a lot of this type of walking in New Zealand, where the natural state of the landscape is mainly bush or lowland forest. There are, of course, some exceptions, but to get above […]
Tracy Annenberg 