On this hike, I confirmed something I had a vague sense of prior to coming to New Zealand, namely, I love climbing up steep inclines on hikes. I almost couldn't help skipping up the steps that many of the other hikers took slowly, one at a time. There's something joyful about moving my body energetically upwards in space. I found myself singing Nightingale's song Hills under my breath while ascending. My one regret on the hike is that going uphill so quickly meant that I, without realizing it, jumped way ahead of my scheduled finish time. The 19.4km (12 mile) track is supposed to take around 7-8 hours. I finished in 4. My not realizing I was well ahead of my finish time meant that when I passed a side trip up the steep incline of Mount Ngauruhoe, the LotR movie Mt Doom, I thought I wouldn't have time, so skipped it.
After traversing the crossing so quickly, I decided to try to save some money by hitchhiking back to the starting point. There's a shuttle service back, but it cost NZ$25. I'm trying to keep my budget under $100 US a day, and the car along is costing me around $40 already. I walked the 1km down to the main road, but it turned out to be almost empty of traffic. Finally, I was able to catch a ride from two hikers who had parked their car at the exit, then taken a 6am shuttle to the starting point. (That would have been waaay too much planning for me!) they took me down to the intersection of routes 46 and 47, where (I hoped) there would be more cars. There were, and within about 10 minutes I received a ride from a lovely elderly kiwi couple who were "out for a drive". They knew of the crossing, but had never done it. The woman had grown up in Scotland, then moved to New Zealand as a young adult. The three of us chatted about their lives, LotR (I wanted to know if it was a big deal to kiwis (it wasn't), and the difficulty pronouncing Maori names (like Ngauruhoe - hint: the "g" is silent). Since they weren't headed anywhere in particular, they decided to make the beginning of the crossing their destination, and drove me the rest of the way.
After getting the car, I repaid my karmic debt by giving two hikers a ride back to the ending car park. They were two young computer programmers from the Czech Republic. They were very pleasant and enthusiastic, recommending other places on the North Island to visit.
I then returned to the car park and waited for Austin, another couchsurfer who stayed with my host, Johanna, who did the crossing that day. We had started out together in the morning, I gave him a ride from Johanna's, but it quickly becMe apparent that we hiked at quite different speeds. He was also carrying a SLR camera and a tripod, and wanted to stop a bunch of times to take photos. He showed up at hour 8, and we drove together back to town to buy groceries to cook dinner for Johanna. I really wanted to try a risotto again, since this grocery actually had the right ingredients, namely aborrio rice and Parmesan cheese! Austin (who incidentally went to school at the Berklee school of music for sound recording technology, and now lives and works in Austin, Texas) was completely wiped out after the hike, and went up to take a nap, which ended up lasting several hours - such that he didn't help out on dinner (which was fine). Johanna and I had a nice chat. She is 65, Belgian born, and emigrated to New Zealand when she was a young adult. She took up nursing, and now is semi-retired, though she still tales on home-care clients. I really enjoyed her manner, which struck me as a combination of no-nonsense and experimental - she had just acquired 5 chickens, and for her 60th birthday she had gone skydiving. The risotto was ready and tasted smashing, if I do say so myself. I stayed up for a bit to check Internet, but then went to bed early after a wonderfully full day.
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