Facing the Ring of Fire
If you stand looking out across the vast crater that is Lake Taupo in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, you can see three active volcanoes; Mounts Ruapehu, Tongariro, and Ngauruhoe.
This is the southern tip of the Pacific Rim of Fire – the arc of active volcanoes circling the Pacific Ocean. It is a trail taken by many others over past centuries, including the familiar names of George Bernard Shaw, Zane Grey, Mark Twain and Eleanor Roosevelt. The spectacle of these landscapes draws many.
The sacred Mounts of Ruapehu, Tongariro, and Ngauruhoe and their surrounding plateau are regarded as treasures so precious, that local Tuwharetoa Maori gifted them to the nation over a century ago. The resulting Tongariro National Park was the first National Park in the world created by gift from an indigenous people.
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| Guide Rangi and Eleanor Roosevelt, Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve, August 1943 |
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