Wining, Dining and Climbing

Dora and I started our weekend in rather different ways. I studiously worked into the night, fuelled by pizza purloined from a networking event, before retiring early. Dora – rather less studiously – went to ‘Winetopia’.

[Dora] The wine equivalent of Beervana, Winetopia was a ready-made opportunity for a girls' evening out. Initially stalled by how packed Shed 6 was, Lucy, Phoebe, Laura, Chelsea and I soon mastered the art of shuffling round the vineyard stalls, regrouping to compare notes (literally) and using our 5 free taste tokens for the best wine. Pulled pork sliders, flavoursome dumplings and chocolate brownie helped soak up the winning Elephant Hill rose. We had a nightcap then a small but very fun boogie in town (because girls night out!) before Ubers were called.

Saturday morning brought us to a brilliant brunch at Rich and Lucy’s place. Great chat, chow and coffee brought Dora back to life, and then we drove North in search of winter.

Our original intention had been to climb Mt Ruapehu to pick up some skills with crampons and ice axes. However, a heavy snowfall meant the avalanche risk was too high for the tour we’d booked to proceed.  Undeterred (well, slightly deterred but still keen to climb something), we hatched our plans in an Ohakune burger bar for a Doger Discovery tour of our own.

The original target - Mt Ruapehu

We stayed the night in a typical kiwi homestead, run by a Yorkshire couple with some nice cats and an even nicer early-morning breakfast. A 6.30am departure took us to a ski rental, where we picked up some crampons (mine seemed to be borrowed from a museum) and ski poles. Unfortunately they were out of ice axes, but poles turned out to be more useful for the day ahead.

We had set our sights on a winter ascent of Mt Ngharahoe (Mt Doom, to LOTR fans).

Expert cramponing

Expert cheese-eating

Those of you who remember every single detail we’ve chronicled may remember I climbed this a year and a bit ago with Greg and Sam, on a blue sky day with the beating sun on our backs. This time the weather was similar, but the conditions presented a variety of new challenges. 

For example, first thing in the morning the 7km access road to the Tongariro Crossing (from which you access Ngharahoe) was too icy for our 2WD Golden Bullet to have a hope, so we had an unplanned prologue to our walk. Thankfully some photographers gave us a lift for the second half. We then had to overtake a number of tour groups of varying proficiency, and stomp our way up the saddle on a thick bed of snow that obscured the track beneath.

Pointing at Mt Tongariro and plane in the distance

Crater edge - staying well back

At the base of Ngharahoe we ate lunch, and donned crampons. Both turned out to be essential, as the steep snowy slope was exhausting and technical in equal measure. We had carefully researched the most likely avalanche risk areas, so sensibly avoided these and followed rock outcrops where possible. Two hours of zigzagging later we emerged atop the crater, to view snow-clad scenery. Two kiwi girls joined us, who we warned off the precarious snow overhang on the lip of the crater.

Mt Ruapehu in background - next time!

Views enjoyed, we slid down the mountain, our only casualty a dislodged water bottle that I can only assume is still rolling downhill somewhere in the wilderness. We powerwalked back to the start of the track, then unfortunately had to powerwalk a further 7km to our car. Several cars passed our outstretched thumbs – some were forgivably full, other unforgivably not!

 

By the time we reached the car we had were determined to not let others share our access road plight. It was now almost dark and there were plenty of cars abandoned at the access road entrance, so we drove back to the path start in search of tired trampers. We found four, including the aforementioned kiwi girls, so two shuttle-trips later we had completed our good deed for the day and returned to Wellington with halos and tired legs.

Come Monday only the tired legs remained. Luckily our working week is to be curtailed by the Trip To Melbourne – coming soon to a blog near you!