I follow rivers

 

Turangi, 25.02.13

Yesterday, I got a ride to the Tongariro Crossing for tomorrow, so I decided to stay a day longer in Turangi. I heard the Tongariro River, which is passing Turangi, should be quite beautiful so I spent today doing a day walk along the river.

The plan, according to the information board at the beginning of the trail, was easy: cross a bridge in Turangi, follow a path at the eastern bank for 1,5h to another bridge, cross the river again and follow a path at the western bank back to turangi.

So I started. The path on the eastern bank was stunning: beautiful views over the river and the meadow landscape next to it, and some sheep playing photo model for me.

Red Hut Bridge

I did some detours to the river bank, so I'd been on my way for way more than 1,5h when I arrived at the Red Hut Bridge. But I had already taken so many pictures of the river that I thought my way back wouldn't take so long again. Well, that's what I thought.

There were paths beginning at the other side but it turned out that all of them endet somewhere in the wild in the middle of nowhere. I neither wanted to go the same way back nor take the near State Highway. So I tried all the junctions. Without success.

I've been walking around for at least one hour, coming back to the same place at least five times, when two other hikers told me, that they had just come out of something that didn't look like a path but like this:

If you look closely you may imagine that this had been a path long ago...

Well, at least I could be sure that this „path“ leads somewhere so it was the best option I had. After 15 minutes walk through the jungle, when I was sure that I must have become part of it myself the path started looking like a „normal“ path. After 15 more minutes I reached the „Tongariro Trout Center“ (the river is famous for trout-fishing, I saw many anglers – funny to find a German word in the English language). I had already run out of water so I didn't spend much time looking at the fish, but continued my trip to Turangi. At every juction I had to guess because the map on the information board (of which I took a photo for safety) was no help at all. I will never trust any information board again – promised!

Fortunately, I must have guessed right because I came never to a dead end again. And finally the bridge at Turangi appeared behind a corner. But after all, the views were absolutely worth it!

never gonna trust you again...

Tongariro Trout Center

"You're my river running high, run deep, run wild
I
I follow
I follow you..."