A tale of two volcanoes

The North Island of NZ is a volcanic powder keg. But one that begs to be be tampered with.

A few weeks ago, after three days of waiting on the rain, we threaded a weather needle and made a dash for the summit of Mount Taranaki in the southwestern north island. Taranaki is an achingly perfect volcano with rich green native bush skirting the flanks of a deeply erroded summit dome capped by a snow-filled crater. At about 1500m elevation we came through the cloud layer into the rarified world above where the sky is cobalt blue and the skin comes off your nose in 15 minutes.

Up another 1000 metres of scoria and slabs and we stepped into the icy windtunnel coming off the permanent snowfield in the crater. It was blowing a hooly when we topped out two metres below the summit, touching the top rather than standing on it out of respect for its sacred place in Maori culture. The views were tremendous. All the way to the South Island and to Mount Ruapehu, Mount Tongariro and Mount Ngauruhoe in the east.

Forty-eight hours later, after driving half way across NZ delerious with summit fever, we topped out on Mount Ngauruhoe [really a giant vent of Mount Tongariro and probably known to some of you better as the stand in for 'Mount Doom' in Peter Jackson's cinematic Lord of the Rings trilogy].

Ngauruhoe is a perfect volcanic cone of pumice and scoria devoid of vegetation. Looking into the crater is an eerie exercise in human insignificance as vents spew steam along the crater rim. To the west, the massif of Taranaki dominates the skyline halfway across the country.