Tongariro Crossing

On the sixth day of our honeymoon (I know, we've been back about 3 weeks and I am only on day 6), we climbed part of the Tongariro Crossing. We were told by the Department of Conservation that the full crossing transport wasn't up and running yet so we could climb up the first half of the hike, to the saddle, and then back down the same way. While we were hiking, we found out that there were tour operators running but due to wind, they weren't doing the whole hike that day.

The hike was hard and I had trouble maintaining a comfortable body temperature but it was absolutely amazingly beautiful (as evidenced by the volume of pictures I'm posting). I kept getting too hot and then too cold. Tongariro Crossing was one of John's favorite things on the honeymoon and mine as well. After reaching the summit of the saddle, we attempted to continue on a little ways since there were supposed to be pretty crater lakes and we wanted to try to see them. What we found was a snow field. I turned back part of the way into it because my ankle hurt too much. John ventured on and reported that it was windy, very windy up there. That snow field was the hardest thing we did on the honeymoon (yes, harder than hiking on a glacier). We also got sunburned on the hike. We blame the snow field...