Recollections of a mother and daughter's Tongariro trudgings

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 570, 24 January 1995, Page 8

Recollections of a mother and daughter's Tongariro trudgings

TURNT0PAGE8 climb. We wandered in the general direction of Mount Ngauruhoe commenting on various things that caught our interest. To me the landscape up there is just incredible. Words can't describe it. You have to do it and feel it to appreciate it. By the time we reached the starting point for the Ngaruahoe summit climb Mum's enthusiasm had worri thin. She really didn't want to do it. We sat and had lunch, boiled a brew and watched a couple of road runners shinny up and down the mountain in the space of an hour. My neck was getting cramp with the strain of looking so far up all the time. "How's the enthusiasm level Mum?" "What has to be done, has to be done," she replied. We formulated this plan of attack and started off. "We're crazy Mum, crazy." Mum didn't say anything. An hour later we were just about there. We clambered up the last stage of scoria only to find we'd reached the false crater. The twenty metres or so to the real crater was one of the hardest twenty metres of my life. I clambered up on all fours, sliding back on the loose scree practically as fast as I moved forward. Before I knew it I was flat on my belly staring in to the gaping mouth of the crater of Mount Ngaruahoe. One more step and I would have gone over the edge. (Just as well I wasn't standing up!). I lay there and breathed the toxic, egg-like fumes hissing around me. The view was quite incredible. Mount Taranaki stood proudly on the coastline. The Emerald Lakes glistened far below. People standing on the summit of Mount Tongariro looked like ants, even Mount Ruapehu didn't look that ominous. I was on top of the world. I didn't dare walk right around the crater (although you can). I don't mind heights, but this is more than high, and I didn't trust my tired legs after more than an hour of continuous climbing. With the compulsory photo call out of the way and the weather closing in Mum and I decided to descend. The first bit is really tricky, but once you're in to the loose stuff it' s a bit like deep powder skiing (with a stretch of the stride and the imagination). Y ou can literally slide on your feet down the mountain. The exhilaration is incredible and you can't help but let out a hoot of delight on the way down. (On the way up we had heard all this yelling and hooting, it wasn't just us who had a good time.) At the bottom reality set in. Mum had twanged her knee the previous day and the minor injury had now been aggravated. My knees were complaining too. We still had over an hour's walk to Mangetapopo hut for our second night. The hour stretched to two as Mum couldn' t bend her leg at all. We strapped it and climbed down in to the Mangetapopo Valley as best we could. The track is very, rocky which proves tricky when you can't bend your leg to get over them. The going was very slow. Our bodies were so sore, and Mum's knee seemed hopeless. There was no way we'd be able to manage day three of our plan. We started working on another Plan B to pass the time as we made our slow way to the hut. We could walk out to the Mangetapopo car-park and catch a bus to Whakapapa and walk from there. Or we could walk back to our car the long way, a good 10 hour flat, boring walk (boring to us because, as Waiouru-ites, we know what tussock looks like. We decided we' d decide in the morning. After another restless night (you'd think you'd sleep like a log with all that fresh air and walking) another brilliant day dawned. There was some low lying cloud over all of the mountains. After breakfast, the cloud lifted, the bodies felt not too bad so it was back to the original plan. We would branch out on our own and navigate the Pukekaikeore and Ngaruahoe saddle over to Tama Lakes, join up with the Waihohonou track which would lead us back to the car. The climb up was just short of treacherous in my estimation. The dark, tumbling, rough lava flows from Mount Ngaruahoe' s most recent eruption proved unfriendly and unforgiving. The knees took a pounding trying to balance on rocks that defy their size by being incredibly light and unstable. By the time we had reached the highest point of our joumey the aches had definitely set in again. It had taken us four hours to come this far and we knew we had at least six hours to go. We knew there was no turning back so we gritted our teeth, shot our bearing and headed off. But by this stage I was not in good humour. Mum had been this way before but had a complete memory blank. There were no shortcuts for us. The compass and the map we must follow. We knew we had three ridges to cross or skirt around. These ridges seemed to be great mountains in themselves. My temper was wearing thin. After a few suggestions that Mum had ignored I'd had a gutsfull. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that there was no way out except on my own two feet. We trudged and we trudged. We shot another bearing to check our location and continued. This time I was not following my mother (I broke the golden rule and split up). Mum was so stuffed, and her knee was so sore she had decided to skirt around the fingers coming off the ridges. I decided I was going straight up the guts following the compass bearing,

I wasn't flitting around no fingers. My sulking soon turned to anger when I hit a swamp. What's this *3nn@ woman doing, I thought to myself. Can't she read a map? (The swamp wasn't on the map) I spotted a sign far off in the distance. My anger evaporated. I looked around but couldn' t see mum anywhere. I went to high ground and waited for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality w'as probably five minutes. Around one of those fingers limped Mum, red and sweaty and almost beaten. "I can see a sign Mum, we're almost there." She saw the sign too. An age later we collapsed in a heap by Lower Tama. We knew we still had a long way to go, but we knew we'd make it now. Now on those mountains there is a trail that looks like something has been dragged for miles and miles through the sand. That trail is where I dragged my foot the last 10 or so kilometres. My knee packed up too. We must have made a sorry sight when we finally spotted the car and the tears made tracks on our dirty, sweaty faces. We had done it. We were probably a bit over ambitious, but we did it. The tears didn't make tracks down our faces after a good hot bath, but they will always be there, and I'm fairly sure that Mum has some good memories to tuck under her belt until next time.