Distance: 15.4 km (one way)
Gradient: Moderately easy, with mild ascents and descents
Quality of Path: Largely unmodified to moderate pads to Tama Lakes Junction, and then well formed to the trailhead
Quality of Signage: Well signed at all trail junctions, with expected time and kilometre information to the next landmark
Experience Required: Bushwalking/Tramping Experience Recommended
Time: 4-5 Hours
Steps: Several formal and informal steps in places
Best Time to Visit: Great Walks Season; at other times alpine experience is required
Entry Fee: Yes; this is one of New Zealand's Great Walks and must be booked ahead of time
Getting There: The track starts at Whakapapa Village. From State Hwy 47, head towards State Hwy 48 and follow the road up to Whakapapa Village. Parking for the Great Walk is located across the road from the lawn before Chateau Tongariro with a parking permit available from the visitor centre, located a short walk up the road. The trailhead is located behind Chateau Tongariro on Ngauruhoe TerraceEntry Fee: Yes; this is one of New Zealand's Great Walks and must be booked ahead of time
After what had been a horrendous night sleep at Oturere Hut the previous night, Alissa and I awoke wonderfully refreshed and well rested thanks to the luxury of the individual bunks at Waihohonu Hut. With no strangers next to us and only another couple on the bunks above us to worry about, it was so much less stressful than the utilitarian platform situation. Our only concern was that our snoring would keep the other couple up as they had had a horrible sleep the night before due to other snorers. We were relieved when they informed us that we were not that bad, and certainly better than the people they shared the bunk with the previous night.
After breakfast and a typically fast pack up, Alissa and I were the first ones on our way. The smoke from the fires in Australia blowing across the Tasman had only gotten worse overnight, shrouding Mount Ruapehu in a layer of foreboding haze. At the time, Alissa and I were very saddened by the devastation that the fire had caused to the Australia bush, mostly because of the serious loss of animal life and habitat destruction, but also because it meant that many places we wanted to hike were now probably destroyed or significantly scarred. Little did we realise at the time that there would be another, even more dire global disaster just lurking around the corner that would almost completely curtail our hiking plans for the next couple of years...
The predominant story of this last day of the Northern Circuit is following an open grassy plain back to Whakapapa Village, however there are moments of variety sprinkled throughout to keep it interesting, such as passing through pockets of forested areas. This variety helps prevent the experience from being too monotonous.
Another major feature of the day is the way the trail follows series of streams and watercourses almost all the way to the Tama Lakes junction. Mount Ngauruhoe features strongly as a visual anchor for much of this section of the walk, although at the time of our visit the haze has somewhat marred the quality of the views.
While flat compared to Day Two of the circuit which follows the Tongariro Crossing, the day was surprisingly undulating, with a significant number of steps in sections. At one of these stepped sections, Alissa and I were overtaken by a guy who had followed a similar itinerary to us but had started a day earlier. As a result, he, his wife and children had to do a bit of a flip-flop to their walk and did a car shuffle in order to move the Tongariro Crossing to a day with more suitable weather and ended up walking the trail a bit out of sequence as a result. Being the fittest and fastest walker, he was powering ahead to get the car and drive it to the nearest road access point to Waihohonu Hut so the family could get out a bit faster after the inconvenient shuffling of their plans.
With the trail bending slightly south, the view changes to once again take in the snow-capped peak of Mount Ruapehu as the trail continues to pass through grasslands and mountain heath.
While the streams had largely remained in view for most of the day, the trail largely stays a bit higher and further away. Before leading to a couple of creek crossings, the trail begins to run right along the watercourse, thus providing a bit of a visual cue for the transition to the next section.
At the time of our walk in January 2020, the crossings were bone dry, however I imagine the area being a lot wetter in springtime after a winter with particularly heavy snowfall.
Beyond the crossing, the streams were flowing much faster and seemed more substantial, likely due to a number of tributaries joining together and forming a more powerful watercourse. This was a fitting finale to this stage of the walk as the trail transitions to a drier landscape for the rest of the way to the Tama Lakes junction.
After quite a few ups and downs, it was nice to be able to switch off a bit as Alissa and I walked through the grassy plains. With the darkened skies, the autumnal hues of yellow and orange from the dried grasses were rather apropos and made for quite an enjoyable scene.
Passing through Tama Saddle, the flatness of the landscape was almost unbelievable, with the marker poles visible as a continuous line through the sparsely vegetated landscape.
Looks to the north of the trail towards Mount Ngauruhoe, Alissa and I could see the lower Tama Lakes were coming into view, indicating we must be pretty close to the trail junction.
Before reaching the junction, the Northern Circuit descends through an interesting valley that meanders around as if follows the contours of the landscape.
A little over two hours after leaving Waihohonu, Alissa and I reached the Tama Lakes Junction. As is often the case, Alissa was not as keen to do the side trip as I was, and decided she was happy to just wait at the junction, which also gave me the advantage of being able to drop my main pack and walk unencumbered.
While a decent distance from Whakapapa, it is possible to do the Tama Lakes as a day walk. As such, the trail construction jumps up in quality from a rough pad to a much more dry boot gravel walk trail.
My plan had originally been to do both the Lower and Upper Tama Lakes, however with the somewhat hazey conditions I didn't rate my chances of getting particularly good photos so decided to leave it for another time.
Meeting back up with Alissa, the two of us continued on the main Northern Circuit track back towards Whakapapa, which again featured mostly uncomplicated walking through alpine grasslands and with views of Mount Ruapehu.
Rising up the other side of the rocky valley, Alissa and I were gifted with spectacular views across seemingly endless alpine grasslands, with Mount Ngauruhoe towering overhead and the clouds in the distance below our current elevation.
Rounding the corner, Whakapapa Village came into view which confirmed that Alissa and I were on the home stretch. As you can tell, Alissa was pretty excited knowing the end was near.
From the viewpoint, the trail winds downhill as it makes it way to Whakapapa, with a short side trip along the way providing views of Taranaki Falls.
Although a very short side trip from the main trail, Alissa was again not in the mood to head down the steep stairs towards the lower viewpoint of Taranaki Falls. As I was determined to see this spectacular waterfall in person from below, I again dumped my pack with Alissa while I went off my myself with the camera.
While steep, the descent is quite lovely given it passes through rainforest - a nice change of pace given it had been tussock grasslands and alpine heath for almost the entire day.
After being so adamant that it would be worth the side trip, I was glad that Taranaki Falls lived up to expectations as a beautiful and fairly unique looking waterfall. Something I found particularly interesting is that Taranaki is also the name of a volcano on the south west of the North Island and far away from the other volcanoes of Tongariro National Park. The connection is explained in Māori mythology, with Mount Taranaki having once been located with the other volcanic peaks before being forced to flee after losing a battle with Mount Tongariro. The gap left by the departing mountain resulted in Taranaki Falls.
While it is possible to continue along the lower track towards Whakapapa, I returned back up the stairs to Alissa to continue along the higher route given this is marked as the official route of the Great Walk.
The Northern Circuit crosses a wooden bridge over Wairere Stream just above Taranaki Falls.
Looking upstream from the falls provides some lovely views of the smoothed out volcanic rock, with Mount Ruapehu visibility somewhat obscured by the bushfire haze.
Following the ridge line, the trail passes the edge of the lava flow, with the landscape transitioning from the tussocks and heathland as the rocky, volcanic soil was left behind.
The final kilometres of the walk feature some lovely rainforest walking, and we would encounter a lot more walkers through here heading out on day walks. A hiker we passed had an Aarn day pack, which elicited knowing nods from myself and the other hiker as is the way of the Aarn pack cult.
Just before reaching the end of the circuit, the landscape opens up once again as a bit of a reprise of the scenery that makes up the first few kilometres of the trail on Day 1.
Returning to a thicket of bush, the trail reaches its end at the trailhead. Alissa and I were glad to have ticked our second New Zealand Great Walk off from the bucket list, especially since this is one I had on my list to do for a number of years.
From the trailhead, Alissa and I walked back along the road back to where our car had been parked. Given we had arrived for our first day in less pretty awful weather, Alissa and I took the opportunity to check out the Wes Andersonesque Chateau Whakapapa and to get our patches from the Visitor Centre.
From the car park, Alissa and I had our final view of Mount Ngauruhoe, something we had not realised was visible from the car park on the day of our arrival due to the white out conditions. From here, Alissa and I drove up to get a burger from a local food truck vendor, took the winding road up to check out Mount Ruapehu and visited a small waterfall that was used in the Lord of the Rings films.
This was a lovely final day of the Tongariro Northern Circuit, with the tussock grasslands, constant mountain views and the highlight of Taranaki Falls making this a memorable day of hiking, so much so I was able to write this up with little difficulty two year safter the fact - a delay brought about due to being a bit burnt out and down about the COVID-19 epidemic and its impact on our usual four multi-day hikes in a year schedule.
This was a lovely final day of the Tongariro Northern Circuit, with the tussock grasslands, constant mountain views and the highlight of Taranaki Falls making this a memorable day of hiking, so much so I was able to write this up with little difficulty two year safter the fact - a delay brought about due to being a bit burnt out and down about the COVID-19 epidemic and its impact on our usual four multi-day hikes in a year schedule.
At the time we finished the Northern Circuit, Alissa and I thought it would be a 'long' six months until our next multi-day hike adventure. We had booked an Easter trip up to Ningaloo which would take up one of our usual multi-day hike slots. Our next hike was thus to be a trip to Far North Queensland to do the Thorsborne Trail, and we talked about how much of a difference the tropical lushness of Thorsborne would be from the volcanic alpine landscape of the Tongariro Northern Circuit.
As it would turn out, COVID hit Australia just weeks out from our Ningaloo trip which we had to delay until 2021 and the Thorsborne Trail hike was cancelled due to COVID-19 border closures. Though we postponed it to 2021 that rescheduled Thorsborne trip was also heartbreakingly cancelled just a week out from our departure due to the Delta Outbreak. A Tasmania trip in December 2021 to do the Three Capes Track, Freycinet Circuit and Maria Island was also cancelled (this time just three days before departure) due to Omicron, meaning that other than an overnight training hike on the Cape to Cape Track (since burnt by bushfire) and our transition to bikepacking on the Munda Biddi Trail, this was the last day of multi-day hiking Alissa and I would do for a number of years, thus breaking a continuous run of multi-day hiking holiday adventures that began with our Christmas multi-day hike on the Bibbulmun Track in 2015.
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