Te Araroa Day 38, Ketatahi Roadend to Whakapapa Village

Starting km: 1147
Finishing km: 1173
km covered today: 26

As the weather forecast for the day was much the same as for the previous few days (i.e. nice in the morning, turning dreadful in the afternoon) we planned to have the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (the first part of the day's walk) done before noon, so set out at 05:30.

I won't say too much about the crossing itself, as the photos can do a better job.

I will, however, briefly discuss our fellow walkers. 
First: There were hordes of them! We were walking the Crossing in the opposite (harder, more climbing) direction to most, so saw just about everyone doing it that day. The first appeared just after 8AM, the last (that we saw) while we were lazing about in the sun chatting with the hut warden and having lunch at 11:30 at Mangetepopo Hut at the far end of our crossing.

Second: A disturbing number of them were idiots. Almost none of the people we chatted with had looked at the weather forecast. And far too many were quite poorly prepared.  I took to asking (in as cheerful, pleasant and polite a fashion as I could) if some of the later starting walkers had warm clothes and rain gear.  Quite a few didn't, and several of these literally laughed at the question.

As it turned out the weather on the mountain did look to deteriorate rapidly after lunch, and I myself got completely soaked by a deluge in my last fifteen minutes of walking for the day as I approached Whkapapa Village.

This would have been cause for more disappointment, except for the fact that as soon as I arrived I popped up to the Skotel backpackers and booked a four bed room for myself and my fellow walkers.

Not only did we sleep inside that night, we replenished supplies (I bought a loaf of bread, some bacon and an ice cream) and had plenty of time to dry out our gear between episodes of booming, flashing and torrenting in the sky.  And grandest luxury of all, between 18:00 and 19:00 the four of us sat soaking  in our private spa pool (included with the room) listening to the rain on the roof and watching the lightning in the sky while our clean laundry was in the dryer down the hall.

100% Luxury tramping, 100% spoiled, 100% awesome.