Went at 8 am. Car lot was full but enough in overflow. Great to see sheep and lambs. Took my partner and I five hours return. That includes stop throughout to see the views & sheep, 20 minute stop at the view point and 20 minutes at the top for lunch. Would recommend going in the morning when the wind is at its lowest. Would recommend for sure.

Went on the first day of "reopening" after it was closed for lambing (1st Oct to 10th Nov each year). Most blogs suggest to start at 2.30am but I would recommend starting around 3.30am. Carpark was almost full when we reached at 3.30am. Anything earlier you will have to sit and wait quite awhile for sunrise, freezing. We started at 3.50am and I found the timing just right. Needless to say it's crowded. The view is nice but not the best, especially with the crowd. Trek was alright but as many suggested, boring because it was just zig zag up. Easy to do in the dark but pretty much it. Lots of cow and sheep droppings to keep you on your toes.

The hike was a lot more manageable than we anticipated… we nearly skipped over it after reading the reviews online. We arrived at around 7:45 and the car park was half full. The view along the hike was amazing, and you get to see sheep, birds and rabbits on your way. There was no line for the “insta” pic spot when we got up around 10:15. The downhill portion is hard on the knees with uneven surfaces (ie gravel, sand, grass) so remember to pack proper shoes!

We are a couple in our 60s, well almost, 61 and 58. We are good walkers and would consider ourselves fit. We started the walk at 09.20am and finished in 6 hours with a lot of stops and lunch on the way down. Both of us found this hike very hard! It’s uphill all the way for 8km with very little flattening out. Too be honest I almost gave up when we got to the viewing point. There was 1.5kms to go after viewing point so we kept going. Coming down was absolutely brutal on the knees. All said views were outstanding but we both thought this was an incredibly tough hike! We did meet a Dutch couple carrying a 15 month old child in a special carrier, so clearly they didn’t think it was tough!!

Beautiful views. The main trail up is fairly boring. Switchback after switchback. A pretty relentless slog uphill. The views at the top though, stunning. Amazing. We stopped at the first viewpoint and went higher up. We started out before sunrise and really enjoyed hiking up under the stars. This made it so much more enjoyable for us. You could see the Milky Way and we caught a gorgeous clear night sky. It also was so lovely watching the sun slowly rise as we worked our way up. We made it to the classic first view at peak sunrise. Wonderful. Come prepared for this hike. It is a workout. Bring water and food. We saw some who looked miserable without water or food and not with proper layers. This is a challenging hike up and rough on the joints on the way down. Views are worth the effort!

As many others have said, this walk is long, relentlessly steep and hard going. But worth it. The comradery among fellow walkers was nice, sharing a laugh along the way. We started a bit after 7 am and saw the sunrise on the way up. There was a bit of cloud at the peak which came and went offering stunning glimpses of the view while we sat eating. Pretty chilly at the top so we needed all our warm clothes. We drank about 2.5 liters of water between two of us. All ages were doing the walk, so if you're somewhat fit you'll be able to do it no worries.

We are a family of 5 - 3 kids aged 13, 10 & 4. the 4 year old went up in a child carrier on dads back. We had read it was an easy to moderate track, we would say it's more moderate to hard. We arrived in the carpark at 9.30am and we were back by 4.30pm, took us 6 hours. We stopped for breaks along the way. We have done Mt Tarakini & Tongariro crossing., this was quite up there. It's very steep and has a rocky track. The views were amazing. You don't need to go to the peak to have the beautiful views, there are lots of nice stops along the way. We were glad we did the peak but it wasnt easy and wouldn't be in a hurry to do it again.