River Lake, March 22nd

Being the extremely well organized person than I am, I slept in and dicked around on the beach for a little too long and sure enough I forgot to book my bus out of Taupo. I managed to score the last ride on the next bus out of sheer luck but then I realized that everything has it's price.

Note to British mothers: If you have a 17 year old daughter who is doing her "gap" year, has died blond hair, and couldn't figure out which pair of high heels to bring while backpacking so she brought both DO NOT let her travel. Keep her at home with all of her fucking annoying, loud, obnoxious, pretentious friends and smack them repeatedly until they learn not to say things like "this song makes me horny!" when Marvin Gay's sexual healing comes on the bus radio.

Also, please don't ever put them on my bus again especially if it's one of their birthdays. I can't describe what it's like to get on a bus and see the whole thing done up in these fucking pink streamers and party hats. I thought I walked onto a set design for full house. The threshold from hell didn't just stop there though. When ever the bus stopped, each girl had to find that one tube of lip gloss that rolled god knows where before she could get to the nearest Internet cafe to post pictures of herself hanging off some other 17 year old dipshit from the previous night while retching up all the 2 minute noodles she ate for dinner. Luckily being the subtle person that I am I made a few comments that assured that I would not be disturbed for the remainder of the ride to River Lake. And the comments did get me a few laughs from the 22 and up crowd which I bonded with very well.

River Valley is paradise. It's one lodge that's used as a base camp to send out the white water trips that end a stone throw away from the lodge which is nestled between these two huge hills. If I had six months to do nothing you can bet your arse I'd be bar tending there. (I even looked into it but you also need a working visa etc.) That night I introduced everyone on the bus to the classic Canadian card/drinking games. Pyramids, Kings, no-fuck, and 21 were huge hits and luckily the young'uns decided they'd rather puke or go to bed early and paw at each other so we had the time of our lives!!! This was my favorite place on the trip so far, if I'm ever back this way you can bet I'll return!!!

Taupo, March 21st (climbing Mt. Doom)

So for some reason I signed up for the Tongariro Crossing that started my day today at 5:30am!!! The bus picked up myself and three guys I've met here and after awhile we were at what is described in the pamphlet at "the best one-day hike in New Zealand." It was definitely worth it! We started hiking through the valley at 7:30am, the whole hike is 18.5 kilometers but as we were making good time after conquering the Devils Staircase we decided to hike up the Ngauruhoe Summit. (2287m) Most of you will know this mountain by it's more famous name as "Mt. Doom" in the Lord of the Rings movies. It's actually quite a hazardous little trek up the side of one of the more active volcanoes in the country, it actually erupted as recently as 1975. The trek took three hours but that doesn't really do it justice. The volcano is so steep that in many places you have to use your hands to pull yourself up onto rocks and ledges. One lady almost bit it when a landslide started and a rock the size of a basketball picked up some momentum and started to roll towards her 500 meters bellow us! Luckily the guys who started the landslide saw it happen and screamed at her to duck out of the way and it probably missed her by no more than three feet. The decent was even trickier as one tumble and you would wake up in a medic helicopter air lifting you off the mountain. Last week one guy had to get the $5000 lift into town because he broke two ribs, a leg and his collar bone! We figured out that the best way to do it was to simply run a traverse across the mountain and treat it as a ski slope which seemed to work fairly well despite the number of close calls we had! After a quick stop for lunch, (I forgot to buy some....to quote my dad, "way to go Will." So I had a liquid lunch of H2o and then we kept pushing. The scenery was spectacular, especially Blue and Emerald Lake and the Red Crater. The hike finished with a descent in the Ketetahi forest and by the time we reached the pick up point at 3:40 we were exhausted!! I haven't eaten today since I didn't have time for breakfast so I'm about to dive into the $10 hostel bbq, hopefully they'll let me build a pile of potato salad that's as big as Mt. Doom. Miss you all!

Taupo, March 20th (Sky Diving)

You know when you do something really stupid and then regret it the next day? (Like every time I go out for a "casual" beer?) Last night we signed up for skydiving this morning and for some reason we went out the other night and got absolutely WASTED! I got lost in the town and had to hail cabbie who looked at me like I was completely out of my mind and gave me a two second ride back to my hostel that I just passed! One girl I was partying with had the same thing happen to her but her ride was free because the cops don't charge you anything! So this morning I woke up and felt like complete shit along with everyone else and then it hit me that I would be jumping out of a plane at 15 000 feet.

It was probably the coolest thing I have ever experienced! It feels like you're falling for about ten seconds and then everything goes quiet and it's just you and the rest of the world. I did it over lake Taupo so the view was spectacular, for some reason I wasn't even all that nervous, it just sort of happened! Anway I will never foget that feeling, here's some pics but they don't do it justice!!!

Waitomo, March 19th (Black Water Rafting)

If you are ever in Waitomo do the Black Water Rafting!!!
This was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. They fit you with wet suits and hard hats with little lights on them so you feel like a deap sea coal miner and then you repell down a 34m hole into the middle of this huge cave. After that it's a zip line in pitch darkness over an expanse and then you jump down into your tube that's sitting in 20 degree water. You raft for a few hours where the only light is the one from your headlamp and the millions of glow worms that are suspended above you. (They told us afterward that there are also a shitload of eels that breed down there and that sometimes they get a little frisky but we didn't see any!) In order to get out of the caves you basically have to rockclimb up two waterfalls which was a little tricky but honestly this was the coolest thing I have ever done! Now it's off to Taupo for a little sky diving.
Will. Out.

Rotorua, March 17th (Maroi / White Water Rafting)

As soon as we arrived in Rotorua we were spirited off to a traditional Maori dinner, complete with welcoming ceremony and everything. They performed their native dances and even the food was cooked in underground pits which gave it this really smokey flavor. Only problem was that I ate about 9 helpings and felt like such shit, (along with a lot of the other guys and girls on my bus,) that we made a poor showing on St. Paddy's Day! I'm sure I''ll make it up later on the trip though.







I felt a little groggy the next morning so I thought I'd wake myself up with a little white water rafting! (This was also the perfect excuse to get away from the town that due to the thermal activity in the area, reeked like rotten eggs and made for a savage hangover!!This river boasts the largest drop (7m) of any commercial rafting company and it was worth every penny. When we went over that particular waterfall, our whole boat was submerged underneath for a few seconds before it popped up in the air like a water wing! (That's me in the top left with the instructor.)

Now on a little more of a downtrodden note, when we left Rotorua we stopped off at a Maori national park to watch the geysers explode and to see some Kiwi birds. I'm not saying this was a bit of a rip off......I'm telling you that the "guided tour" took a turn for the worst when our guide told us that the Maori were the ONLY culture to describe their history in dance and song and that she couldn't remember the names of any of the actual gods that she had spent 20 minutes talking about. Also, do all national park guides keep referring to the pamphlet that you can pick up for free when you walk into the park??? And to top it all off I'm pretty sure the Kiwi birds were fake, they keep them in this tiny little glass enclosure in the dark, I almost felt like banging on the glass to scare the shit out of them to put them out of their misery!!!

Cape Reinga, March 13th (+ Mercury Bay)

Words can not describe how beautiful this country is, after awhile you think you'd get immune but then you turn a corner and something else takes you by surprise! Our bus driver (Otto....no joke and just a crazy) took us along 90 mile beach, you're not allowed to swim on the beach because the surf is too rough and the undertow would drag you over to Chile but just walking around was quite an experience. There's nothing but sand as far as you can see. After that it was time for a little sandboarding. At the very top of the beach are these massive dunes and you are basically handed a surf board and can go nuts. All the guys try and see how fast they can go because if you pick up enough speed you can actually go past the bottom into the bushes. The only problem is that you steer with your toes in the sand which slows you down so the trick is to kind of lean the way you want to go. That also doesn't work all the time either, on my third run I was trying to do the whole thing without breaking and got going so fast that I caught a bit of air going over one of the ridges and got thrown forward. I landed on my side and honestly it was like wiping out on sandpaper!!!

Once I finished picking sand out of my ass for an hour we headed up to the actual cape which is marked by a lighthouse. The whole area is very sacred to the Maori natives and marks the spot where the two ocean's meet. This is the type of place where you can look out into the ocean for hours and just let your mind wander. After a while it was time to head home and our last stop was a little fish and chips shop before heading back to the Bay of Islands and then Auckland.

After a quick stop in Auckland it was onto Mercury Bay for a night. On the way to Mercury Bay we stopped off at Cathedral Cove which is the most breathtaking beach I have ever seen!! It's about a 40 minute walk from the road but the hike is worth it. The whole beach is divided up by a massive cave flows with the ocean water during high tide. We even saw a penguin swimming along the bank that made me unable to form words for a full 30 seconds.....me!! Not knowing what to say!! I know!!!!

Paihia, March 12th/14th

The small town of Paihia is located in the beautiful bay of islands on the north end of the north island of New Zealand. The town is pretty small but there's a ton of stuff to do. This is where the famous "hole in the rock" is and on the 14th I took a speed boat called the "Exciter" out to see it. The actual rock is impressive enough but what really got me was the amount of fish that are in that part of the ocean!!! I actually couldn't see them at first because there were so many that they just looked like waves, you could have reached over the boat with your hand and just plucked one out of the water!


After that I decided it was time to get a little culture so I opted to hike out to the site where the Treaty House was located, (this is where the treaty that united the Maroi natives and the English was signed in 1840.) When I reached the gate I learned there was a $12 admission fee. I also learned that the people who manage the national park are not the swiftest people and since the gate at the bottom of the park had been left open....I mean c'mon, I'm going to spend $12 to walk around and see a war canoe and a flagpole????

After a few days in Paihia I'd hiked up all of the hills in the surrounding area so decided to do a day trip and head up to Cape Reinga which is the northermost point in New Zealand.

Auckland, March 10th

After a REALLY long plane ride we finally made it to Auckland! As it to happens this was the first night of a week long city celabration that was kicked off by a free firework show. K and I spent the day just walking around the city and seeing the sights including Kelly Tarton's underwater museum and the park in the middle of the city. I got some really good pics (the one of the blowfish had me laughing for hours,) but the thing about Auckland is.....it's just another city albeit one that is surrounded by volcanoes! Two days was enough for me and I decided to join the Kiwi Express that took me north to the Bay of Islands.