In January Rianna decided to complete in a Hyrox competition in Auckland with her friend Maya. Her partner Kobe also came along. So as to make the most of the trip we added on a few days sightseeing and hiking a little of the north island.
In January 2026 Rianna decided to complete in a Hyrox competition in Auckland with her friend Maya. Her partner Kobe also came along.
We flew out from Melbourne about midnight on Thursday 29 January 2026, landing in Auckland around dawn.
Friday was about overcoming the ‘jet-lag’ as there was not a lot of sleep to be had on the flight, and to register and prepare for the competition the next morning. Saturday was the Hyrox competition for the girls – with an 8:00 am starting gun. That left time for some local sightseeing before heading south the next morning.
The subsequent days were somewhat open – except for our booking on the Tongariro shuttle bus on the Tuesday morning – after the Hyrox the other objective of the trip was the walk the Tangariro Alpine Crossing.
On Sunday we drive south exploring the coastline before settling for the evening in an AirBnB in Stratford with Mayo and Kobie who had had a frustrating day organising their hire car. Stratford is dominated by Mount Taranaki – a spectacular conical volcanic mountain of Lord of the Rings fame.
Monday saw Maya and Kobie do their own thing as we walked a forest below the mountain then drove to National Park – near the starting point for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Increment weather closed the crossing and cancelled the shuttle bus, so we just walked as much of the crossing as we could – maybe 40%.
Afterwards we drove on to Rotorua for the night. Next morning we explored a few of the local hot springs in the town before joining a fascinating Maori guided tour through a local community.
Then hasty trip back to Auckland for our early evening flight home – after squeezing in a small detour to some more springs.
Rianna and I were fortunate to be able to get into our nice accommodation immediately, but Maya and Kobe had to mark time until the afternoon.
We had breakfast nearby then chilled in our rooms before walking the city for a couple of hours. This included buying groceries and lunching on the grass of Albert Park. We drove out to the Auckland showgrounds to watch some of the Friday competition and to register and get the layout of the course. We also pondered was to ‘sneak’ Kobe in a s a spectator, as the ticket release had sold out. Then we cooked dinner (a bit of carb loading) and planning for the comming days.
Day 2 – Hyrox and the Island
With an 8:00 am event time we picked up Maya and Kobe and arrived early. The girls appreciated the early start as the running legs were outside and the day was going to be sunny and into the high 20s.
Being the first group made it easy to monitor the position of the girls in their heat. After leaving the first station in about first they briefly hit the lead and remained neck and neck with an older couple, where they stated the last station (the wall ball) about 20 or 30 seconds behind. They had a tendency to throw the ball too high (which counts as a miss) or not squat low enough (also a miss) meaning they throw about 120 balls to register the required 100 valid throws. The leaders only needed about 103 throws, so they managed to extend their lead and ‘win’ comfortably. But it certainly made for an interesting competition.
We we back at our accommodation by late morning and decided not to waste the remainder of the day by catching a ferry to a nearby island – Rangitoto Island. The result of a volcanic eruption 600 years ago we walked across lava fields and through sub-tropical forest to the summit.
We were keeping a careful eye on the clock as the last ferry home left at 4:00 pm. Against our better judgement we detoured on the way home to a lava cave – a tubular system maybe 200 metres long from end to end. Quite the highlight. But it did mean a very hasty march down the mountain. We picked up just enough time for the quickest of ‘swims’ before catching the ferry home.
We dined with Kobe and Maya in an Irish(?) pub and made plans as to where we would meet up the next night – they had managed to rent a car for themselves.
We drove south through Hamilton to the best ice-cream in New Zealand (thank you Charlie) and onto a costal formation known as the Three Sisters.
Playing it by ear Rianna identified a coastal attraction known as the Three Sisters. We didn’t know what to expect, and were initially blocked by a muddy path along the shoreline. However some persistence revealed fascinating cliff faces, caves, sea stacks and views of distant Mount Taranackie.
Rianna nearly burnt her feet crossing the hot black sands so decided to return to the car via the meandering watercourse. Towards the end there was a short-cut across a mud flat – except it was more like quicksand.
It was getting late in the afternoon but we thought we had time to squeeze in a walk around a lake that promised imposing views of Mount Taranacki. It did not disappoint.
We got to our very nice accommodation in Stratford, buying a few suppliers for a BBQ diner where we reunited with Maya and Kobie. The next day Maya and Kobie left us to do their own things whilst we found a walk on the flank of Mount Taranaki. It was mostly light rain – which was not much of an impediment and meant that there were few people around.
After the walk we learned the shuttle bus had cancelled our booking as the poor weather on Tuesday had resulting the the national Parks people closing the Tongaririo Alpine Crossing. We drove on to our rather spartan hostel type accommodation in National Park where Rianna improvisewd a meal as we scoured the resources for alternative walking options the next day.
After investigating numerous options we decided to drive to the starting point of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. There was a car park there with a four hour limit, and a 2 to 3 hour walk along the start of the track to Soda Springs. We thought we would walk to Soda Springs, and possibly a bit further along if it was safe to do.
At the carpark it looked like staff were parked – either to stop walkers from setting out, or to enforce the four hour limit. We were about to start when my day pack was missing – left back in the accommodation. So we lost a bit of our early start advantage, with the weather forecast to worsen from the late morning.
We set out on an excellent track, and saw maybe 10 other walkers – 3,000 is not an uncommon daily number.
We passed one returning walker who was wet through and running back to try and stay warm. She had been part way the day before, but found the lack of visibility and cold conditions had made it pointless and risky to press on.
We felt better equipped and still quite dry, say pressed on past Soda Falls, where the real climbing started. There were several warnings signs advising against proceeding in adverse conditions. We photographed and ignored them.
On the first plateau it was like walking across an inch-deep lake in the rain and mist. We climbed up past this point to a ridge-top which seemed to be a volcanic crater rim. The wind was quite strong by now, and combined with the steep, muddy, rocky path we debated the wisdom of continuing. Whilst we had hoped to get to the red and blue crater lakes we realised that they would not be visible – even though we were prepare to incur the $170 parking fine for the cause.
Rianna was OK to press on but I voted otherwise. Once down the steepest of the mountain Rianna ran back to the car – a bit outside of four hour limit but without receiving a parking infringement.
After finishing our slightly wet but extremely enjoyable walk we drove on to Taupo for lunch and then continued to our motel accommodation in Rotorua. We walked in to a very pleasant New Zealand meal. The next morning we looked for Jenny’s Black and Blue got my phone fixed (it had got wet the previous day).
We then walked around a city park that had numerous hot and somewhat smelly springs across it. We then joined a guided tour through a Maori village (Whakarewarewa). It had been built around hot springs and geysers. It was fascinating to see the different temperatures of the pools. One was clear enough and hot enough that food is cooked in it – we sampled some corn – it was very good. There were cooking ovens constructed over steam vents and open air hot water baths fed from a hot spring.
On the way back to Auckland we took a small detour to Putaruru Blue Spring. It was a brilliantly clear, blue tinged river that we followed downstream for over a kilometre.
