Skiing and tramping in Tongariro National park - Part 2 (Tramping)

Treasure at the end of the rainbow!

Hayley playing in the snow near the start of the walk

A nice easy bridge crossing (wish they were all like that!)

Whilst the boys continued skiing Hayley and myself planned to complete some of the famous round the mountain track walk and top off the week by summiting Mt. Ruapehu.

Waitonga Falls

The round the mountain track is a five day wilderness trek, but we only planned on tramping up to one of the overnight huts on the south side of the mountain and back again.

Dodgy river crossing coming up!

Made it to the first hut.

We reached the hut bang on time and had a quick break. It was really hard going in the soft snow and we had wished we had brought our sleeping bags and a bottle of wine so we could just crash for the night in the hut. It had a nice wood burner and comfy beds.


And the second hut. Half way point!

Snow outside the hut

We left the hut on our return journey back to the car and by the end of the day we both had soaking wet feet from completing so many river crossing's. I also had the joy of falling backwards into a freezing cold river after a branch I was stood on snapped! The walk had prepared us well for what was coming up at the end of the week when we would be going for the icy summit of Mt. Ruapehu.