Climb mount ruapehu

I woke a and got rolling by 8, got a little lost but found myself by asking a nice Idahoan lady who runs a B+b in the wrong direction.  Turned around, I found my way up to the Chateau and Whapipapa village at the base of mount Ruapehu.  This is the biggest mountain of the chain at 2900 m high, with mount doom from LOTR next door about 20 km away. Mount doom is shorter but is very steep.  The base was 1600m high. Rather than ride the ski lifts I climbed the scree, first it was somewhat easy but then I started freeclimping and it was a good bit of work.  It became obvious that my mountain path planning algorithm was terribly deficient. I continuously chose paths that forced me to clamber up sheer faces. After getting up I realized I had missed the easy way. As I got higher I also had to avoid snow patches as my lightweight fitness shoes were fully permeable to water. After an hour I came upon the highest cafe in NZ.  I kept climbing to the end of the highest ski lift at 2250m an hour after that.  I continued to push myself, but I encountered a field of snow, and fog from clounds dropped the temperature considerably. So I turned around, well beat already, but going down was a different walk. The clouds reduced visibility to a hundred feet and I couldn't see the markers for an easier climb. My route planning software guessed wrong multiple times leading me to sheer clifs with 50' dropoffs where I had to backtrack. Once I climbed down loose scree and had a rough time going down the steep loose rock, and after surviving it I decided to be more conservative. This was very cool overall, but this Florida boy needs a software upgrade before doing this again.
I made tea at the van, and then I rolled off towards Whapipapa and took an hour and a half walk along some rapids which flowed down off the mountain. I then drove on a bit and took another walk to see a 5m waterfall.
By this time I was fully beat and drove poorly to Tuatpu where I pulled into the worst camp thus far. This place is really run down and almost uninhabited, and barely any of the appliances in the kitchen function.  The shower rooms were also poor, but I could be worse off. There are some German high school kids staying in a tent with no car whose misery is evident in that I watched them play on cell phones for 4 hours. While I showeresd, cooked and moved about.  When I asked them they said they spent all their money already and have enough food and cash until their departure flight in two days, but the did do the tongaruru crossing.  I am not feeling quite up to it after today, but maybe I'll change my mind.
Tonight I sealed up my van and let the sand flies eat me until they were full, and now they have left me alone.  Sleep soon,
Mike