The Tongariro Crossing has been on my must do list for as long as I can remember! Without the excuse of studying or snow on the Mountain, Easter was the perfect opportunity to conquer this!
Unfortunately you are still unable to cross the entire crossing, having to stop at the half way point and return the way you came in. This means effectively you are walking the same distance but is still not quiet as satisfying as saying you have done the entire crossing. 
Being Easter weekend I knew it was going to be busy on the track, it was even busier than I expected though! We ended up arranging transport from our hostel (YHA National Park Backpackers) which was $30 each which I thought was rather steep, but given the alternative of leaving at stupid o’clock to try to get into the (rather small) car park and then having the worry of whether or not it would be safe, it was a small price to pay.
It was a bit cold and very cloudy and we made it to the top (just before where you turn around to go back) and were greeted with an incredibly cloudy view of the Lakes, after sitting down for a while huddling to keep warm and eating what we had been calling lunch at approx 10.35 (Yes not quite lunch time!) the clouds lifted and we received an amazing view of all the Lakes without the cloud obstruction.
After a long rest at the top enjoying the relaxation, trying to keep warm and enjoying the views we decided to start heading back. Now that the cloud had lifted it was a lot easier to see where we were heading, I’m kind of glad there was cloud on the hike there as it was rather steep and looked kind of daunting to climb. The climb down was a bit slow going to begin with so we didn’t end up slipping and sliding down the mountain.
After a long 6hours 56minutes (Including a couple of hours worth of stops) and 1590 calories burnt we had conquered the crossing along with A LOT of other people! I would recommend doing the crossing on a weekend other than Easter as there were a tonne of people. I’d also be tempted to do the whole thing from start to finish once the second half of it is open, just because I’m curious about that last section.
What did you do over Easter?
Hooray! So glad you finally got to do it! Why is the second half closed? When I did it – the second half was the awful part, especially once you got down into the trees…I felt like I was hallucinating thinking I could hear people at the end around every corner!