The original plan for this day was to hike the Enchanted Forest loop. But my left knee was still aching from the long hike yesterday, so we trimmed back the route a little bit; we skipped the climb up to Jackson's Lookout. I marked with red dots the path we took on the map shown below. We went as far as the suspension bridge on the Waingongoro Track before we doubled back, and then hiked up to see the Wilkies Pools.
Inside Egmont National Park, we encountered a lush forest, with leafy trees and dense undergrowth. We often could hear birds chirping in the tree canopy, but could not spot them. In some
places along the Waingongoro Track, the wet leaves crowded the trail, so we had to push through the vegetation while following the trail. At the park boundary, however, the trees were mostly gone, chopped down to create
pastures for livestock. It seemed that the much of New Zealand flora had been cleared, which of course had a devastating effect on the fauna (mostly birdlife - prior to the arrival of humans, New Zealand's only mammals were bats and
marine mammals).
When we left the park, I opted to take the Forgotten World Highway, Hwy 43, to the town of National Park. The mapping software showed that this route was a drive of 215 KM, but it recommended
that instead we should take State Hwy 3 and State Hwy 4, even though driving that route was a 250 KM journey. I should have taken the 250 KM route. The Forgotten World Highway turned out to be an endless drive of winding roads
and sharp curves, in an area so remote that we drove over several one lane bridges. It took us 4 1/2 hours to finally reach National Park, part of that delay was due to the fact the we ended up at construction site where the road
was entirely blocked by road workers. We stayed at Plateau Lodge. The motel worker told us that due to high winds (up to 90 KMPH at the top) that the Tongariro Crossing had been completely closed for safety reasons. The bad weather
was expected to continue tomorrow. Closing the Crossing would of course upset our plans to do the Northern Circuit (though we weren't going to actually do the Tongariro Crossing until the day after tomorrow). We spent that evening
assemblying our gear for the three day trek, bringing all of our rain gear and expecting to encounter some bad weather.
Still Photographs
