Mount Ngauruhoe looms over a wilderness of desolation.
Offset against the cerulean sky, this active stratovolcano has a dark, conical shape and clouds bubbling around its blood-red crater like dry ice in a lab experiment. It’s the sort of volcano my son Edward would draw.
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Edward clambers on to the bus that will escort us to the start of our trek with a spring in his step. ‘That’s Mount Doom,’ he says to the bus driver, just in case he didn’t already know.