With a good breakfast and well deserved sleep behind us and three mountains visible ahead of us, we started the arduous journey into the infamous Mordor. For those that do not read or watch movies, this is the area in the lord of the rings where Mount Doom is located and home to the fantasy world's most evil characters. In New Zealand, the area is known as Tongariro National Park, home to three volcanic mounts, the first of which was actively billowing clouds of steam in the early morn.
Starting off early, today was definitely going to be a day of long landscape pictures, with few clouds to obscure the mountains in comparison to our last journey in with Tom. Once we got around Mt. Tongariro, the infamous Mount Doom or as it is properly known, Mt. Ngauruhoe, came into view. The lord of the rings jokes also started early, as we piled back into the car after the photo shoot and started driving into Mordor!
Unlike in the lord of the rings, we were greeted by the chateau at the base of Mt. Ruapehu, the third volcano, still crowned by copious amounts of that beautiful white fluffy stuff that the rest of the family was trying to forget about.
We drove up Mt. Ruapehu towards the ski lodges, getting out to stretch our legs and explore a bit of the volcanic landscape. Mary-Ellen, happy to be out and about, scouted ahead for orcs while Derek took the first lookout. The jokes continued and yet still hadn't gotten old, despite having made most of them a year ago with Tom.
Joking aside, the landscape was spectacular, with large boulders displaced during previous eruptions and erosion, channels of historic lava flows, and the small, sparsely vegetated hillsides. All of this set in with the backdrop of the two volcanic mounts reaching high enough to touch the clouds.
For the lord of the rings junkies in the crowd, this of course led to a hike in to Mount Doom. We decided to take the same trail we went on with Tom. Walking over hills, along paths washed with the incredibly light pumice stones which may have been jokingly tossed at several members of the group, the most obvious target of course being the highlighter green shirt. Either to reduce his obviousness as a target for pumice and marauding orcs along the craggy ridge lines, or to block out the sun, Geoff quickly switched to his more muted sun shirt, and we carried on down the path along the ancient lava flows.
When we arrived at the end, having strolled briskly into Mordor, we admired the scared surface of the great mountain with the darkened flows of rock twisting down to the valley below. We got our customary photo in the shadow of Mount Ngauruhoe, exchanged a few more jokes and headed back to meet up with the rest of the group.
About a year before this, I had the privilege to share this experience with one of the 4th siblings of the Wilcox Family, and now I was able to share it with the rest of the family (excluding the rest of the adopted family, but you know your always welcome!). Our day in the sun and excursion into the mountains ended with a much needed peanut butter and jam sandwich, which was quickly becoming the official lunch of this vacation. We journeyed back to Taupo for our last night in the area before an even bigger day, with a journey into the bowels of the earth and yet another lord of the rings adventure.
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