New Zealand on a Very Tight Budget Day 13

Today we tackled the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Famed as the best one day walk in New Zealand. We were incredibly lucky with the weather as the forecast had been a bit iffy, but we caught the 7 am bus from the camp site and after a thorough briefing from our driver set off from the start just as the sun cleared the mountains (volcanoes) with completed clear views of everything - which is the first time there had been no cloud for the last couple of days it had been in view! We climbed steadily observing the changing vegetation until there wasn't any vegetation to observe. It had been a very chilly start but people were stopping to shed layers quickly as the sun rose. There are two sharp climbs towards the pass, one to the massive south crater which looked like the pictures from Mars and the other to the impressive Red Crater which looked like the mouth of hell. On the way paths branched off to reach the peaks on wither side but that is only for the super fit.
The clouds were starting to roll in as forecast but that now added to the moody and menacing atmosphere.
Just when you've cleared the top and caught sight of the amazing Emerald Lakes and breathed a sigh of relief that its down hill all the way comes a savage steep descent on loose gravel. People were going down like nine pins and we were very glad of our walking poles which took us past a lot of young fit people on their back sides.
We stopped for an early lunch before making the long descent past the Blue Lake and many steaming vents down an incredibly ziggy path with many steps when our poles again proved their worth and a young man actually commended us on our fitness as we were caning it downhill to catch the 2.30 bus.
The reason we were hurrying to get back was because the rain clouds were gathering - as forecast - and to clear up the massive and tragic red wine outage the occurred over night.
Now some people might say it was my fault for putting something on top of the wine box. Well they would say that wouldn't they?