Our first expedition in Tongariro National Park was to take on the Taranaki Falls Walk. There are two tracks to the waterfall and each track takes approximately an hour to complete. We decided to start on the lower track and return via the upper track.
The beginning of the walk is through an open flat land of red tussock grass.
Unlike the walk to Cathedral Cove in Coromandel Peninsula, this is a much easier walk as it is mainly walking on flat land instead of going up/down slopes. Distance wise it's much longer though.
After about 20 minutes of walk over terrain covered in alpine grassland and passing in and out of strips of ferny forests, we could see Chateau Tongariro Hotel behind us from a distance.
The next section of the walk was mainly through the forest. We reached a sign that says it is 40 minutes from here to the Taranaki Falls.
At this point, we were walking by the Wairere Stream to our left.
Right in front of us is a wooden bridge that leads to another difficult track that goes out to Mangatepopo Hut. That's not where we were heading but we walked on the bridge for a good view of the river.
After about another 20 minutes walk, we arrived at a small waterfall called the Cascade Falls. We had a great view of the waterfall on a bridge that crosses the gorge. It started to drizzle and we had to put on our raincoat.
From this point, we started walking up an open grassy slope, roughly parallel to Wairere stream.
We could see Taranaki Falls at a distance.
After more than an hour walk, we finally reached Taranaki Falls.
Fortunately, the rain stopped at this time and we could have some nice photos taken at the waterfall.
Taranaki Falls springs from twenty meter tall cliffs of volcanic rock that are colored in creams, reds and blacks, which make a dramatic background for this Tongariro National Park waterfall.
We were now half way through the walk. We decided to take a short break here and have some snacks before returning to Whakapapa Village via the Upper Track.
After resting and replenishing ourselves with some snacks and drinks, we embarked on our returning walk via the Upper Track.
The walk around the lava flow its quite interesting.
Here we were able to have a great view of Mount Ruapehu.
Further down the track, we could also see Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom) and Mount Tongariro but the peak was still covered in clouds.
The remaining of the walk was mostly done in the rain. The weather here was really unpredictable and changed from time to time.
Jerlene and Javier decided to take the lead from this point onwards.
We felt a sense of satisfaction after we reached Whakapapa Village. In total, we took about 2 hours 45 mins to complete the entire walk. Despite the rain at some points, the walk had been very rewarding.
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