Tongariro National Park

Hi people! We're back home adjusting to the real world again. I'm bored at work so I figured I'd blog about the rest of our travels!

Ok we left off at the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which Lonely Planet rated as one of the top 10 day walks in the world. We packed our bags with water and snacks and headed out for our 21km (about 13 miles) trek at 7:30am. No water along the way so we had to pack a lot! The hike went across Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe (aka Mt Doom from LOTR!) and crossed several active volcanoes, a crater, a glacier valley and several mountain springs. It was a lot of uphill hiking and climbing over rocks formed from lava.

At the bottom we wore shorts and Tshirts, but when we got to the top it was freezing cold and so windy! We could barely stand! There were no barriers on the top of the mountain, scary!

After about mile 4 we were pretty tired but we convinced ourselves to push through to see the emerald lakes that awaited us at the top! Beautiful! It took us about 4 hours to reach the top and we had a picnic lunch when we finally got there. There were three emerald green lakes and they were amazing. Except they smelled like rotten eggs from the sulphur in the volcanoes. Gross. You could swim in them but too cold today.

It took us about three hours to climb back down the other side of the mountain. So pretty! You could see for miles and miles because the land was so flat. We hiked over streams and saw tons of plants and birds. No animals though.

When we finally reached the end of our trek we were exhausted! Time for the hot tub :) Our hostel was kind of like the chalets at ski mountains back here and there were two jacuzzis outside. So we spent an hour relaxing our tired muscles in the jacuzzi. While we were sitting there hanging out talking to the other travelers, who waltzes by but out old bus driver, Dippy! Turns out Dippy was driving back to Wellington the next day as well and would be our driver for the rest of our tour. Small country!

After the hot tub, we cooked some frozen pizza and watched LOTR in the lodge with a group of fellow travelers who had also hiked the mountain today. And by watched I mean fell asleep five minutes in :) But we did get to see the Hobbiton scene we visited the day before! So cool! The first couple scenes of the first movie take place in Hobbiton. Unfortunately the actual set isn't as golden and sparkly and magical as the morning but still cool!

Then we hit the sack to prepare for our journey back to Wellington the next day. What a day!

Back in the states!

Hi dedicated readers!!

As most of you know, we are back in the states!! We need a day or two to adjust and get over jetlag but don't worry the blogs will continue to catch you up on the rest of our trip in new Zealand!

In the meantime we are enjoying delicious Mexican food and cheap hit chocolate! Good to be back :)

Waitomo!

So after our night in the creepy hotel in Hamilton, it fiiiinally stopped raining and we finished our journey to Waitomo Caves. The caves are old limestone mining caves and are lit up by green glow worms. There are maybe 40 or so caves in the area?? Pretty cool!

We spent the day black water rafting, which, to our surprise, is nothing like white water rafting! There are no rafts involved and there are not really any rapids. The rapids are a 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-6 (the rapids we did in Cairns were a 4). There was mostly just a lot of walking and crawling underground so I'm not sure why they call it the same thing! Not good for anyone with even a little claustrophobia! In order to get down into the caves you have to abseil (rappel) and climb and jump way deep down. We dressed up in something like a rubber snow suit, donned some rubber boots, helmet and flashlight and headed down under.

Boy were we surprised when we got underground! Our first descent into the cave was via rappelling (abseiling) down a 100ft waterfall. Yikes! We were strapped to a harness and had to jump backwards down the waterfall. Scary!

There were three other smaller waterfalls to rappel down and we froze our butts off! We climbed through rock formations, climbed up walls and waded through pools of freezing cold water. We got to see a bunch of glow worms...so cool! They looked like a tiny neon green light and there were tons of them. We were underground for four hours in the cold water...crazy! We saw a bunch of stalactites and fossils and bones as well which are formed by the water flowing through the limestone and dripping from the roof (creating stalactites) and coming up from the ground (stalagmites). The glow worms are unique to NZ and they emit light in the larvae stage to attract food. The whole life cycle of a glow worm takes 11 months and they glow for 9 of it.

At the end of the day we were exhausted and ached from head to toe! We were very proud of ourselves though for sticking it out through the cold, wet and strenuous activities. Actually I guess we didn't have much of a choice since there was only one way out but still. It was tough. I'm not sure how people do full day tours...we were beat after a half day! At the end of the day we were rewarded with a nice hot shower -- but the showers had no doors! Free shows for everyone!!

We couldn't take pictures underground but there are some general pictures online that are pretty cool. Check out www.waitomo.co.nz!!

After our exhausting day, I took a nice four hour snooze in the back of the car while Kar and Walt drove to Tongariro National Park, our stop for the night. What should have been a two hour drive some how took four hours...oops! Oh well, more sleep for me :)

Hot Water Beach and Hobbiton!

Helloooo sunrise!

I think this morning is the earliest we've had to wake up yet, and we've had ourselves some pretty early mornings!

Karina set her alarm for 4:30am because we had to go within two hours of low tide so we figured we'd get there around 5:30 and have an hour of beach time. Howeverrrr Sleeping Beauty snoozed til 5:30 so we got a little bit of a late start to the day. We rolled out of bed and drove to the beach in our pajamas.

Ok now let me explain the Hot Water Beach situation! There is a part of the beach where underneath the sand is really hot due to the plates in the earth's crust or something and if you dig a hole you sort of dig yourself your own little hot tub. Hot is a very accurate word to describe the water, scalding would also be appropriate. Temperatures can be up to 180 degrees!! Luckily the ocean waves come and add some cold water to the pool and cool it down a tad! You need to go at low tide or else the beach disappears under the water, hence the early morning. When we got there another couple had already done the work and dug a big hole with a shovel so we just mooched off them and used their hole! It was burning our feet and pretty painful but it was still cool. The whole ground was steaming so pretty hard to get photos but we saw a beautiful sunrise. Then Walter thought he lost the car keys which prompted a search of the beach! If we weren't awake by then, we were after! Miraculously the keys were just chilling in the sand (not swept out to sea) and we were able to move on to Cathedral Cove!

Cathedral cove is a beautiful hike ending in a beach just down the road from Hot Water Beach. Either side is made up of large rocks and cliffs and it's beautiful! Very calm and secluded beach which is apparently good for snorkeling. We hung out there for a bit then headed towards the place you've all been waiting for...Hobbiton!!! Aka Lord of the Rings central :-)

We had another long drive to leave the peninsula and head towards hobbiton. We were planning on visiting a nice gorge but the access road was closed. On Easter a truck fell into the gorge (which happens a few times a year apparently) and they had to close the road to get it out. So instead we had to take a longer route and made it just in time to take the last tour of the day! Phew!! And just in time for the rain to start. Our whole tour was done in the pouring rain, but luckily they provided umbrellas and the scenery was cool enough to distract us! We also had a private tour! Maybe due to the rain or the late timing, who knows, but it was pretty awesome. From the little town of matamata we got the tour bus which took us out to the farm where everything was set. A family owned the sheep farm with hundreds of acres and the film was only shot on ten of them. The shire was originally to be shot in multiple locations around NZ but apparently when Peter Jackson saw this spot he realized it was perfect in every way and shot it all there. They didn't had to build the lake or add the tree, it was already there and just like JRR Tolkien wrote about it. Fate!

We were able to see the different hobbit holes and the spot where Bilbo's party was and to bridge gandolf rode over! None of the hobbit holes actually open, the set was only used for outdoor scenes. Also the new movie the hobbit was filmed here. So they actually took down all the lord of the rings set and put up a new one, then recreated the lord of the rings again for the tour. Weird but I guess it works! We had a great tour, I only almost slipped in the mud once, and we met the resident cat. He is the number one cat lord of the rings fan in the world!

After we went to town and got good burgers to wait out the rain. We then couldn't find our keys for the second time that day so we sent Walter in search of them. He returns with them and says "I'm not sure what a boot is but these were in there" we left them in the trunk!! Oh man we were both very unlucky and very lucky that day!

Then began our drive to find accommodation for the night. It was still pissing down rain and made it very hard for me to see, thus very scary to drive. Plus the roads were beginning to flood, lame. So we stopped early and stayed in Hamilton. What an adventure! Karina had a tiny run in with the curb, causing the hub cap to fall off. Oops! Then I said ok Ill drive...and accidentally drove down the right side of the street into oncoming traffic! Yikes!! This prompted our 18 year old backseat driver to exclaim "I need to go to bed!! Look at this!!!" haha poor Walter. We finally found a motel and due to the days festivites, had some goon and watched some Letterman and went to bed!

Road Trip!!

Road trip time!!

After Bay of Islands we headed back south towards Auckland. We spent the night at Fat Camel Hostel...way dodgey. Good thing we were only there for a night. Our bus pass got a little screwy with switching around directions (apparently we can only drive north with our pass...who knows) so we decided to do a road trip! The Dutch bloke Wouter aka Walter only had a week left in NZ as well and hadnt been to the places we were planning to see on our road trip so he decided to tag along with our road trip. Woo hoo! Driving on the left again!

So, we laid down some ground rules for Walter including yes, we listen to girly music and sing very loudly, no, we do not have pillow fights and paint each others nails, yes, we eat and pee alot, and make sure Karina eats every couple hours or else she gets grumpy and we set off on our trip. Only after did we learn he can't drive (no license) or navigate (gets carsick) so we mostly had him sit in the backseat and occasionally prepare food for us, but it's ok he didn't complain too much...except whenever Karina wanted a snack...and we had a lot of fun teaching him American slang and different figures of speech/sayings. Our personal favorite is "hindsight is 20/20" after explaining it he says "oh yeah we have a phrase for that to- you always know better after something happens," definitely not as creative!!

First destination: Coromandel peninsula. This is the northeast part of the north island and its known for its mussels, beaches and gorgeous scenery. The drive should have been a three hour drive or so but it took us about 6 -- oops! Karina drove most of this leg of the journey while I took pictures of beaches, valleys and sheep. So pretty! The road was windy and full of sharp curves and after a couple hours of screams from the driver (she swears she wasn't scared, the screams just helped her make some of the turns) and a few yelps from the passengers (seems like the proper thing to do when your driver is shrieking!), we stopped off at the town of Coromandel for a picnic lunch alongside the beach. We were told that the best mussels in the country were from this little shop called The Coromandel Smoking Company, so naturally I had to get some. They had all kinds of flavors! I got lemon/garlic and smoked chilli. Omg. Out of this world!! $4 for 8 mussels that were like three times as big as they are back home! I'd say they were about 1 inch by three inches and almost an inch thick. Silly me made the mistake of asking how to take the shell off...the lady in the store looked at me like I had three heads...guess they don't serve mussels in shells around here! They were delicious and now I'm sad because seafood is so expensive back home and I've found my new food passion :-/

After lunch, we continued to drive along through some small towns and made our way around the peninsula. We were doing great until we got to Rotary City (ok that's not what it's called but that's what I'm calling it) and somehow ended up driving in the wrong direction, then back to the Rotary City, then back around in circles and down dead end streets because the signs for our destination of Hahei disappeared. A note about kiwis giving directions: they suck at it. A typical response to how to get somewhere usually involves "oh it's easy! Just take a left and drive down there then take a right over there then it'll just be right there!" Right where people?!?! Be more specific please!!

Anyways after a little two hour detour we finally arrived to a whole bunch of darkness in Hahei. No street lights in these parts and traffic lights are hundreds of miles apart! Who needs traffic lights when you have rotaries...grrr stupid rotaries. We stopped at a beachside hostel and had a private apartment room for the night. There was a queen sized bed and two twin beds, a mini kitchen and a fridge. Great success! We also learned that in order to see the hot water beach we drove here to see, you had to go around low tide which was either 3:30am or 3:30pm. We had to keep moving the next day so you guessed it, 3:30am means go time!! After a tough day of navigating and taking pictures, yours truly went to bed at 8pm and Karina and Walter went to check out the nightlife at a local pub. Fortunately for me the town was deserted and not many people were at the pub so I didn't miss much!

Bay of Islands

Karina here!

So bright and early (and a little hungover) we left Auckland on Saturday morning for the Bay of Islands! We went even further north to the northern tip of New Zealand. We went with Stray and had a new driver named Bear. He was very informative and cool and within an hour of the trip talked us into signing up to skydive, smooth eh? More on that to come.

Anyway we made a few stops on the way- first stop was at a kaori tree. These trees are crazy cool and significant and were farmed down to 1% of the population :( they grow incredibly slow (the one we saw was 250,000 years old) and are very sturdy. They don't rot in water and are great for ships and piers, etc. So we hugged one due to Maori belief that if you don't hug one every 3 days it will die! It was huge!

Next we went to a bakery with the worst food on earth. I'm still thinking about it and not happy. Then we stopped in a town where a famous German artist designed a public restroom. It was all mosaics and very cool. Reminded me of an art museum in Philly which was the same thing- all mosaic made of different glass and plates and random objects. anyway the Germans all knew him and it was a happy moment for them (and us). Then we walked to a big waterfall called the Hatea waterfall which was very cool and pretty. I'm sorry I'm not good like Alexa and don't remember the names of anything or places. All I can tell you is everything was great!

We arrived in Paihia where we would stay the next 2 nights about a block from the beach. We stayed at Base Hostel and our room only had one wimpy light. But the town was so beautiful. Little sailboats all along the coast and pretty rock formations and a lot of islands in sight as the name suggests. It was a pretty sleepy town but had a few shops, pubs, free Internet and fudge tastings. What more could you need? We were going to walk along the coast but not surprisingly it rained.

That night we had a BBQ from the hostel with our new posse which consisted of us, 2 Germans and holland still. We had a great big meal (Alexa and Holland shared my steak and sausage!) and soon were off to bed to catch up on 3 nights of sleep.

The next day was great! We had a tour of the most northern tip of the country, Cape Reinga. First stop was a kaori gumtree farm/museum which showed how they used to dig for roots and there was a whole industry out of harvesting these trees. Then we kept driving to cape Reinga which was the most northern tip and we could see the Pacific Ocean meet the Tasman sea. Pretty awesome! They say the waves where the two meet can be up to 30ft high! There was a nice lighthouse there and beautiful scenery. Theres also a cave in the middle of the ocean where its believed that Maori souls swim through when they die to go back to their motherland. After we drove on the beach Fraser Island style called 90 mile beach. It's the only state highway in the world that's actually a beach! We were able to get out and walk around and if you stood on the sand while the tide went out all these little oysters popped up and appeared! There were heaps of them around and the water was cold so for the first time this trip the ocean reminded us of home. Gonna be hard to swim in ice cold water again...

Anyway from the beach we drove to some large dunes and were able to go sand boarding!! You use a boogie board and climb up the dune, lie on the board and you just go! It's so awesome and you use your feet to break at the end. Climbing the dunes was hard so we only did 2 runs but they were fun, sort of like sledding! By then it was time to come home and on the way we stopped at a "world famous" fish and chips place called the Mangonui Fish Shop for the best fish and chips "in the world." I have to say as a non-fish lover, I had a bite of Alexa's and even I could eat that and love it. It was good!! (Alexa here...out of this world!! Hands down best fish Ive ever had! It was called Hapuku fish and it was $6 and it was fannntastic). Too bad we don't live near them because it's prob the only time I would like them. They did something special that's for sure!

That night we lost one of the Germans in our crew so Netherlands offered to cook us a delicious dinner of mushroom pasta. I think Alexa would agree with me when I say we could get used to having someone else around to cook for us! We also had a free beer from the hostel and watched Anchorman. Life was good, which is important because we had the lingering fear of dying the next morning at our skydive.

Monday we were picked up early by Skydive Zone and taken to the airport. So nervous but also in that mindset where I just couldn't think about it. They had us fill out forms and sign away our lives and pay and then brought us out to get geared up. We wore these funny jumpsuits and got a hat and goggles.

Ok my turn!! Alexa here :-) So. We got all geared up in our sweet jumpsuits and were paired up with a skydiver. We thought we would have some type of lesson on how to jump or what to do if we suddenly find ourselves falling through the sky alone or the parachute doesn't open or something but nope. All we were told was keep your head back and legs bent backwards into me like a banana -- otherwise we'll both die. Great. We watched two people pack our chutes and our lives in a tiny backpack and next thing we knew we were sitting in a small plane ready to take off.

Oh! I almost forgot. The woman who checked us in was Armenian! So i knew i was in good hands :) She was from France but moved to NZ and didn't know much about the culture except that we have awesome food. She said she has been searching for local Armenians and is dying to get to Armenia so hopefully I convinced her to go!! She said I was her first Armenian jumper :)

Anyways. We were warned by our instructors not to walk in to the plane propeller so that was reassuring. However when i told my guy (can't believe I don't remember his name!! I trusted him with my life!!) that I wasn't scared because i figured he didn't want to die either he told me his dog died yesterday and his girlfriend walked out on him so he didn't have anything to live for. Real great thing to tell someone as they're about to jump 16,000 feet through the air!

Six of us got into the plane - 3 jumpers, 3 instructors and the pilot. We went for a twenty minute ride, climbing higher and higher until we reached our 16,000ft elevation. It was a beautiful day and you could see for miles and miles. Every 4,000ft or so they filmed us on our videotape asking how we felt and what we were thinking. I wasn't scared until the very last minute when the pilot gave the go ahead to open the door. Then I feared for my life!!! I didn't think I was going to die but I suddenly remembered I was going to be falling towards the ground at 200km/hr. that's about 120mph...holy crap!!!

Soooo my instructor (let's call him Steve) buckled my onto him and told me to scoot over and dangle my legs over the edge. OMG!!!! 16,000ft IS PRETTY FREAKING HIGH!!!! And then before I even had time to say no I was falling through the air. Incredible!!!! My stomach didn't drop and I didn't feel like I was going to puke or anything!!! My ears did make a squeaking sound and took a few seconds to pop but once they did i was golden! All I could feel was the wind blowing me around and like I was flying! Unreal!! We were surrounded by islands and ocean and beaches...gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky!!

We free fell for about 65 seconds -- fastest 65 seconds of my life! I swear it was more like 5 but it was awesome. When we got to 5,000ft, Steve pulled the parachute and we bounced around in the air for a few seconds and then silence. Floating. Absolutely amazing!! I did it!! I got to steer the parachute around for a bit and we floated for about five minutes, then had a quick lesson on how to land. Basically keep your legs up and stand when Steve says stand. Got it.

Steve landed and then...well I kind of tumbled to the ground and landed on my butt but oh we'll. Back on solid ground!!! I was high on life. Coolest feeling ever!! I was a little dizzy after the adrenaline wore off but otherwise great success!! Now that I've jumped once and know that it's not scary to fall I definitely want to do it again!! Thankfully Steve waited till we were back on solid ground to tell me his friend died last week in Spain because his parachute didn't open.

We landed just in time to see Karina and her guy land a little bit behind us. I'll let her tell you about her experience...can't wait to show you guys the video!!

A lot of what Alexa wrote applies to my experience. Basically I really wasn't as scared as I thought I would be! I kept telling myself that all the people we met who went loved it and said it was the best experience. They can't all be wrong, right? But then we got to the top and they opened the door and I immediately didn't want to do it. I saw Alexa go first, and basically get sucked out of the plane and I knew that would be me shortly and did not like that. Luckily you have no choice at that point and the guy just scoots you to the door (you are attached so as much as I didn't help he still just pushed me along) and he said "you ready?" and I
Said "no!!" and didnt look out or down i just leaned back on his shoulder like you are supposed to and braced for dear life. And then suddenly we were out and it's terrifying for a few seconds-almost takes your breath away when you see all the space below you between you and the ground. And it's a feeling unlike any other to just be alone and dropping from so high! So after a few seconds of panic you can process in your brain what is happening And have that moment of "I'm skydiving! I'm doing it! This is it!!!" and it's so great! Such a nice feeling to be doing it after all this anticipation and worry and you can think to yourself, I went through with it :) its great and so much fun! The dropping is awesome and goes by so quickly and you are so focused on the feeling you forget there is a parachute. Then suddenly you stop moving and it goes quiet (feels like time stops for a moment) and you think, what happened?!, then you realize he opened the parachute and you think, "oh yeah, forgot about that, glad its working!" so really you are so busy enjoying it you forget all the things you worried About before. Then the rest of the way down is amazing. You still have that rush of being in the air like a bird and not dying, but it goes slower so you can look around and enjoy the view and feeling. We did a spin once which was so cool. it was just awesome! I saw Alexa below me and. Then it was time to land which actually made me really sad. I didn't want it to end and knew I wouldn't be doing it again for a while, so I got pretty sad about it haha. After we landed I was still in the clouds mentally and thinking about it and taking it all in. I couldn't really talk and so my video is lame I didn't say anything cool or funny, oh well. It was worth every Penney, which is good cuz we spent a lot!

After it was over and we were no longer amped up or nervous we realized how hungry we were! We were too nervous to eat before so we won't back and made a nice lunch, took a little walk around and then caught the bus back to Auckland. We had a quiet night in Auckland and bought heaps of groceries in preparation for our... Road trip!! Woohoo!

Auckland

Sheep, sheep and more sheep! So many sheep in this country! Every five minutes we pass a sheep farm. Theres a joke between the rest of the world and New Zealanders...well not really a joke but New Zealanders are knick named "sheep shaggers" because there are so many sheep...instead of being angry New Zealanders totally embrace this myth (or fact?!?) and they have postcards and magnets and other souvenirs with a person shagging a sheep. Crazy New Zealanders.

Oh. And a note about cows (which we've also seen a million of). They're so funny. They stand really close to the fence at the side of the road and then as soon as a car comes they run away (even though there's a fence). Then they come back to the fence and five seconds later when the next car comes they run away again. All day they do this, kinda funny.

Anyways made it to Auckland! Our bus driver said it's the most spread out/biggest city in the world, then said "at least in my world" (he's never left NZ) so I'm not sure if that's true or not. But there are only 2 million people who live in NZ and 1.5 live in Auckland so who knows. They wanted to make Auckland the capital but the south island said it was too far away and was afraid the north island would break away as its own country so they made it Wellington instead.

Oh. Our bus driver's name is Dippy by the way. He's kiwi and he's alrite. A little clueless sometimes but hey that's ok. Seems like we are with him this whole trip so we are getting to know him. He's pretty funny and has a lot of good stories! He just can't remember names.

Ok so Auckland. Great city! The main strip is called Queen street and there are loads of shops and restaurants. The waterfront is nice...a few restaurants and a museum. All the big companies (Deloitte, PWC, RBS...) have their offices here along the water. We walked around the waterfront and soaked up some precious sun, we really appreciate feeling warm now! Beautiful Harbour and bridge area.

We were there on Good Friday so all the shops and bars were closed :-/ We ate dinner with holland at a Chinese restaurant...smallest portions I have ever seen! A side dish of rice was the size of the bottom of a soda can and about one inch thick. And the sushi pieces were the size of a quarter!

We hung out at our hostel for the evening and played cards until midnite when the bars opened again. Then we wandered down to the waterfront with Dippy and our group and explored Auckland nightlife!

Next stop: Bay of Islands!