My first adventures in Middle Earth
A mix of animated voices comes over the lake wharf while I am setting up my tent in the late evening sun. It's Christmas time and local people having their annual festive company events. It won't be that tranquile as last evening, listening only to the bridal chorus of hundereds of black swans and other birds in this lakeside sanctuary in the heartland of the Maori people. Neither could be the experience I had this early, rather chilly morning on my way to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, probably the most spectacular one day trek in "Middle Earth". I still tried to figure out the heater while steering the first hundreds meters along the empty highway, when out of nowhere a Maori appeared on a black horse - a musculous man with long black hairs, barfoot, shorts, and body shirt, riding without saddle but only a lose cord in one hand to support his commands. He disappeared the same way in my mirror in the early morning fog - and when I turned my eyes again for