The National Park has dual status as a World Heritage Site, both for its nature and for its cultural significance for the Maoris.
The Northern Circuit encircles the Mt Ngauruhoe, which is a perfectly shaped volcano which you can easily climb. Apparently this mountain is New Zealand's most active volcano with 61 eruptions since 1839. The track is about 40 kilometres long and a part of it follows the almost too famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing. I did this crossing during my first year in and loved it! Due to its popularity, they have now made the track more reassemble a state highway than a walking track and it makes it pretty boring to run.
The track was stunning and is so incredible different to any other track I have done in New Zealand. The first part offered us some cool running through heather. Heather was introduced into the Tongariro National Park in central North Island as part of an unsuccessful and misguided attempt to set up a grouse moor in the early 20th century. Good on ya Poms!
Looking into the South Crater 
An old lava flow which now forms very unique rock formations
When we climbed up Mt Ngauruhue (2287 m) we saw all the way to Mt Taranaki, which is almost 100 km away. You can see it covered with clouds as usual.
From the top of the volcano, we got a brilliant view of Mt Ruapehu (~2,700m). I don't think the snow cover was enough to open the ski area there.
Cool place to have a wonder. The crater of Mt Ngauruhue was fairly deep (100 m deep) and you really wouldn't feel very comfortable trying to climb down it. The place appeared fairly thermally active and it is not the place to do a panic run.
This fumarole shows evidence that the place is still very thermally active and stinky. I thought it was one of Charlie's first but realised it was the smelly mountain :-)
On our way down again to the South Crater where we left our packs. It offered some good scree running. My shoes did not like it...nothing left of them at the end.
On our way down to the Emerald Lakes. The colour is caused by leached minerals.
The national park offers rocks of many colours. This is the "Red Crater".
Mt Ngauruhoe behind me.
Another stinky fuming pile of rocks. I didn't blame the smell on Charlie this time. 
CB running through the dessert like surroundings to the Oturere Hut. We completed this beautiful day with cooking up a storm - our usual brown rice and delicious curry with the superior Whittaker's Almond Gold chocolate as dessert.
The weather gods were busy watching telly the next day and rain was pissing down. We took the bull by the horns early and left at 8ish (very early for us). I felt like a half-drowned cat when we arrived back to Whakapapa village after 4 hrs of running in 100% moisture. We passed many trampers with unhappy faces, walking very slow through the ankle deep water that covered the track most of the way. Charlie was near hypothermia at one point, but since I have a bit more padding, I was fine. I just told him to harden up...Overall the Northern Circuit is a fascinating place and I would love to go back there again to see more!!
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