The perfect cone of Mt Taranaki
My plan was to do the Around the Mountain Circuit (AMC) at Taranaki, with a trip up to the top of Mt Taranaki itself if possible. Mt Taranaki was named Mt Egmont by Captain Cook after the bloke who sponsored his mission, but the Maori went to court to try to get the name changed to Taranaki, their name for the mountain, and in an astounding case of trying to please everyone the court ruled that both names were valid. As a result, on all the maps you see 'Mt Egmont or Mt Taranaki' printed by the peak, but whatever you call it – and I prefer Taranaki, because it seems more appropriate – it's a stunner.
Egmont National Park – at least that name hasn't changed – is almost circular, and encloses Mt Taranaki at its centre, and it's fair to say that the mountain dominates the entire area. Taranaki is an almost perfect volcanic cone, with a beautiful snowy peak and, from a distance, only one blemish on its slopes, that of Fanthams Peak, another little cone. It's hard to describe how immense the mountain is, but when I woke up on the morning of my trek, having slept in the back of Zed at the National Park's headquarters, there it was; the day before had been totally overcast and I hadn't seen a thing, but Thursday started off as clear as a bell, and it wasn't long before I was stomping off on the track, my pack filled to the brim, and my old faithful boots on my feet.
The AMC is a swine, no doubt about it. It might look all innocent on the map, but it goes up and down more times than the New Zealand dollar's exchange rate; volcanoes have huge lava flows, so the mountain is a bit like your hand if you put your fingertips on the table with your palm facing down, and walking round it means climbing and descending every day. It's a beautiful track, though, and when the weather is clear, you can see for miles. That's when the weather is clear, though...
