Extreme Sightseeing

Volcanoes are the most extreme of tourist attractions, if not the hottest. They explode and kill, and travellers seek them out regardless. Though I’m yet to melt a sandal in semi-molten rock or toast marshmallows on hot pumice, I have got close to the edge a few times:

Aso-san in central Kyushu, Japan: Getting here by car is easy - with a Japanese friend driving. We park just below the crater lip, but could have just as easily caught the cable car. There are plenty of black mushroom-shaped magma shelters to protect us in case lava starts a-flowing. To add a level of difficulty, we visit in the middle of a typhoon. Leaning into the gale, we get to the edge and see a vast cloud-filled hollow of nothingness.

Mt Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island: Not an easy climb. We drive halfway up to the track to the ski run, cross the couloir, which in winter is an avalanche hazard, reach the huts at the base of the ski lift, and look up: the snow-covered cone is a long way away. We walk back to the car.

Tofua, an island in Tonga’s Ha’apai group: The seaplane lands on the crater-lake, and put-puts to shore, and we start climbing. The scoria is loose and gravelly, and covered in weird fern-like creepers. The guide stops, says he’s been up too often, and reminds us if a cloud of poisonous gas suddenly billows our way, we should run downhill. Also, we shouldn’t go to the left of the crevice - if there’s a tremor that half of the cone will fall away first. We get to the lip and look into a pit of poisonous steam, wind blows a cloud our way. We duck and scurry back down and eat sandwiches by the lake.

Well maybe I’ve only got close-ish to the edge.