Ferchi

The North Island is not known for its multitude of mountains: the area's three lone peaks - Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu - stand isolated, rising up from the surrounding farmland. The trio of volcanoes were donated to the British Crown and became the country's first National Park in 1894. The Northern Circuit circumnavigates Mount Ngauruhoe, better known to the world as the Lord of the Rings' Mount Dhoom. The four-day walk passes through old lava flows that have eroded into black-and-red sand deserts, dotted here and there with a hump of pale white moss or a spray of neon yellow wildflowers. The aridity and bareness of the place tends to leave trampers a bit shell-shocked when they pass from the edge of a desert into a dense beech forest slaked by a rushing river.