Day 48: Hitching to the Tongariro Crossing
Monday, January 16
This morning Kristen and I said goodbye to Puff Puff and Julia, hoping we'd see them tomorrow on the Tongariro Crossing since they planned to hike the Northern Circuit in the opposite direction we would be walking the Crossing (the crossing is a day-hike section of the multi-day Northern Circuit trail). They left with someone staying at the holiday park around 7:30 am.
Kristen and I weren't in a huge hurry because we planned to get to the post office with Erinn and Trevor and it didn't open until 9 am. A little before 9 we all walked to town, stopped for snacks at a cafe, bought fuel for our camping stoves, and bought groceries. We all got our bounce boxes and called the Taumaranui Holiday Park to see if they could pick us up. The owner had to wait about 30 minutes before he could leave the desk, so Erinn and Trevor ran to the supermarket and Kristen and I watched all our boxes. The timing was perfect and it was so nice not to carry our boxes 4 km to the holiday park.
The owners of the holiday park are so amazingly kind! They go so out of their way to get us to and from town and they let us keep our bounce boxes there for free until we return in a week and a half for the start of our river journey. We also realized we should have just sent our bounce boxes to them, but sometimes it's difficult to know those things in advance.
Once we got back to the holiday park, Kristen and I packed up to try to hitchhike to Whakapapa. As soon as we got to the highway and I stuck my thumb up, a car stopped. It was a really nice couple and their 2-year-old baby. Kristen and I put our packs in the back and sat next to the little guy. They were on vacation and headed to Turangi, where we planned to stay tomorrow night. They dropped us off where the highways to Turangi and National Park/Whakapapa parted ways and we stuck our thumbs up again.
After a few cars passed, a really nice woman named Zoe picked us up. She was a biker, teacher and writer originally from Scotland. Now she lives in New Zealand. She was headed to National Park, so she dropped us off a little past the turn-off for Whakapapa at Discovery. Their sign said they had shuttles and camping, so Kristen and I walked up to the office to see how much it would cost to camp and get a shuttle to the start of the crossing. Camping was $18 and the shuttle was normally $35 for a round trip. Kristen's friend Tim was picking us up after our hike, so they offered us a one-way shuttle for $20 at 6 am.
We had heard we might be able to camp for free at the parking lot at the start of the crossing, so we decided to try to hitch to Whakapapa and ask about that at the i-SITE. A really nice employee at the Whakapapa Chateau gave us a ride to the I-SITE.
In Whakapapa, the Holiday Park was $22 a night and they wouldn't give us a discount for a one-way shuttle trip. They also only had shuttles at 7 am and 8 am and we wanted to start as early as possible. I called Discovery to see if she still had early shuttles available and if we could still get the one-way discount and the lady said we could.
While we could have walked to the parking lot at the start of the hike and probably camped for free, we knew we weren't supposed to and weren't sure whether or not there would be water there, which we needed for the hike the next day. If we had a camper van, it would have been easy to stealthily sleep in the parking lot, but tents are not that easy to hide. We decided to go back to the Discovery Campsite.
It was just an hour walk back to the campsite, so we started walking and stuck our thumbs up when cars went by incase someone wanted to give us a ride to the end of the road. Two German guys on a working holiday were heading to National Park and dropped us off at the campsite.
After talking with the lady at reception and telling her we really wanted to have time to hike up Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom), she told us we should be on the first shuttle. Lucky for us, she just had a cancellation and there were two spots on the 5 am shuttle! Perfect!
We set up our tents, ate dinner and played a few games of cards before going to bed early. We planned to wake up a little before 4 am to have our tents and bags packed before the 5 am shuttle.
Looking at Mount Doom from the road to Whakapapa