For Alistair Hall, the allure of the Tongariro Northern Circuit lies in its unique landscapes, wild weather and various cultural connections

People will often say of a place that no two days are the same. In Tongariro National Park, you could almost say no two hours. Mts Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu are to cloud, wind and rain, what a magnet is to metal: an irresistible attraction. One moment you could be covering up from the sun, the next sheltering from the rain or finding your way through a whiteout.

I try to time my trips to the park with the weather, but at this altitude (the three peaks are 1967m, 2287m and 2797m) and with these three magnets, experience has taught me you’re just as well to go because it might not be so bad. Or it might be worse.

My first time on the Northern Circuit, it was worse. I was 14 and on a school trip. Our teachers knew nothing and we students knew less. Our first day included a climb of Ngāuruhoe where we peered into the crater and then ran back down the scree slope. Fourteen-year-old me would call that ‘an unforgettable experience’. Forty-five-year old me cringes in wonder at our collective cultural ignorance. Fortunately, a lot has changed in the intervening years. DOC actively discourages anyone from climbing the peak and during the busiest periods, Māori rangers walk this section of track to remind trampers to stick to the trail. For those willing to listen, these locals provide a valuable cultural element to the walk and a chance to understand why Tongariro is so sacred.

But the fine weather that allowed us up Ngauruhoe turned to gale-force winds that evening. Camped at the base of the Devil’s Staircase, between Ngāuruhoe and Pukekaikiore, we may as well have been camped in a wind tunnel. I was among the few with a proper tent – a K2 model built for the mountains. It protected me and my two classmates but when we poked our heads out in the morning, it was to a scene of carnage. Not a single other tent remained standing. Poles were snapped. Fabric torn. Traumatised students gaped in wonder when they saw our tent, unscathed – had we any idea what horrors they had gone through? Our trip was over before it had begun.

Six years later I was back and once again I carried a tent. I have sharp memories of the cold of the night seeping into my bones as a late-summer snowstorm blanketed everything in white. But it was for a cultural experience of a different kind that I most remember that trip. Oturere Hut was full to the brim and the air thick with accents of every kind. New Zealand was so far off the beaten track in those days I don’t think I had ever spoken to a foreigner before, let alone met one. But the world had come to Oturere Hut and it sparked within me a desire to travel abroad and see the world.

My most recent experience of the track was last winter, alone. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in the outdoors as I was when I climbed to Red Crater. The ice was so hard, my crampons barely seemed to scratch the surface. The wind howled and my hands became so cold I struggled to grip my ice axe. Rime ice clung horizontally to the snow poles like daggers pointing back the way I’d come. Turn back, they seemed to scream. I almost did. But somehow I carried on and all of a sudden everything was quiet. A few metres down the slope towards Emerald Lakes and the wind and the cloud disappeared. Blue skies beckoned and in the tranquil Oturere Valley, it seemed impossible that just an hour previously I had been so buffeted by the wind I thought I should retreat.

You walk the Tongariro Northern Circuit on its terms. And as great as the scenery is – and truly, it is remarkable and so utterly unique you will not find anything like it anywhere else – it is also so much more. It is a journey where cultures collide. It is a trial and a test of your endurance. And it is a magnet – drawing me back, time and again.