wellington

The bus to Wellington wasn’t until 3 in the afternoon, so we had time to lounge around in National Park.  We were meeting Tekla, from Alaska, in Welling.  She’s a friend of Ashlie’s.  They met in NYC and have been close ever since.  Who would have thought they would meet up in New Zealand?  

Tekla took us to her place and then we commenced a night of bar hopping.  I liked being in a city again, being able to hang out.  

She took us to a down to earth pub first.  It had recycled everything; tables, lamps, old suitcases...  Outside they had an old camper van that they converted into a bar and kitchen.  I got the local stout and just soaked in the vintage atmosphere.  

Next we went to a speakeasy and got some classily mixed drinks.  I got a hot spiced wine and the girls got cocktails.  It felt very swank, I wish I had dressed up a bit to go into that one, but it was fine. 

 The last place we went was a bit of dive.  It’s a club type place and the one place where you can get cheep beer, $9 a pitcher.  Not bad.  Here we met some 18 year olds.  They started talking to us and thought we were in uni.  This assumption made sense, it was college night, but also made us chuckle.  These guys were impressed by all the different parts of America we had came from and decided to show us some of the Kiwi culture.  So one of the guys starts taking off his shirt and then tell the other guys to join in to do the Haka.  Crazy!  

haka dancing? or just drunkenness...

We left shortly after to find some food.  We were successful in finding some pies. Yum!

The next day we decided to hike Mt. Victoria.  The hike was a bit difficult for Ashlie’s breathing and for my knee.  Turns out I injured it while hiking the Tongariro crossing.  Hmmm… imagine that?!  The view at the top was beautiful, but the hiking back down hurt me a lot.  

When we got to bottom it was bloody Mary time!  We took a stroll along the beach and then found a nice little restraint to tuck in to.  The place we found had great burgers and amazing Bloody Marys.  You can’t believe how hard it is to find a decent one outside of the United States.  

Tkla took some time to give us a little bit of a tour of  Wellington.  We got to see an awesome bus stop.
 

and the boardwalk.

this guy is suspended on hevy duty wire, but that doesn't stop it from being awesome.

 After this bit of fun Tekla had to leave us to go to work for a lesson on milk (she’s a bartender and barista), but that didn’t last long.  We were wandering, finding op shops when she called Ashlie to tell her that she was done.  That was great!  So we went beer tasting together.  The place was called Garage Project, and had some pretty awesome beers.  Plus they were in an old mechanic shop.  How cool is that!?

The Garage Project

Afterwords we sat down at a café and had a beer before Tekla had to go to work.  Ashlie and I ended up going to her restaurant, Ombra for dinner.  It was delicious!  It was like a tapas bar.  We had mushroom risotto and few other yummy things.

Ombra

The next day we had an early start to south island, so we had to go to bed early without Tekla (she was still working).  In the AM I knew we would wake her up at an ungodly hour, but it’s super hard to be quite with an 18 kilo bag.  We tried but didn’t manage to be quiet for Tekla but did get to say good bye. 

We arrived at the ferry terminal just in time.  They called us when we were 5 minutes away.  Apparently boarding a ferry is much different than boarding a bus.  Being early is a good idea.

Let's go South Island!

Tongariro Crossing

Plateau Lodge

 When we got settled in Windy informed us that there probably wasn’t going to be a bus up to the mountain in the morning.  They were looking at the weather and the wind was just too high.  Ashlie wanted to make sure, so she woke up early to ask in the AM.  There really was no crossing the next day, so we bundled up for a day in.  We were informed after lunch that the mountain would be open the next day, but it would be rainy.  It said 1mm of rain, which I thought wasn’t very much.  Ashlie had gotten used to the idea of staying in for a few days.  She had looked at the weather and Saturday looked like a beautiful day to hike.  But I was keen to hike and get going to the next place.  I knew Ashlie was short on time and we both were short on money.  Staying at the lodge was only $30 a night, but the local grocery store was uber expensive.  I let Ashlie make the decision.  This was one of her big things for the trip she had been planning for months, and she was the one sick.  In the end she said we should do it.

the transport shuttle

The day started at 6 AM, the bus left at 6:50 to take us to the mountain.  We were told to have waterproof pants and good raincoat, also good shoes.  Our shoes were mediocre, tennis shoes used in the vineyard, and definitely not waterproof.  My rain jacket was a cheap plastic bag type thing I bought for five dollars and Ashlie’s jacket was a super nice hiking one.  Neither of us had waterproof pants.  I had jeans and leggings on and Ashlie had leggings and shorts, but carried spare clothing for later.  So we were kind of prepared.  I had so many layers (short sleeve, long sleeve, sweater, light jacket, rain coat) on because the wind chill was supposed to be around freezing on the mountain.  That’s actually not that cold for me, but when wet… it could be ridiculous.  

 

The misty beginning of the hike

  We got dropped off at the starting point and the weather was already misting and super cloudy.  Less than 15 minutes into the hike I stopped and put my cheap rain coat on.  Ashlie soon followed this example.  Even though the weather was a little drizzly and cloudy the scenery was gorgeous.  “It really did look like the Lord of the Rings”, as Ashlie put it several times.  Soon we were both tramping around in wet shoes and sogging pants.  I was a little luckier than Ashlie with the wet clothing.  My rain coat was quite long, so it covered my thighs and ass.  This meant that only my calves were soaking, and slowly getting cold.  Because Ashlie’s rain jacket was shorter (stopping just above the hips) from her hips down she was sopping wet and slowly freezing.  To say the least she was not amused.

looks mysterious

This was only the beginning of the hike.  As we moved on things got worse.  I was worried about Ashlie being sick and exposing herself to such shitty conditions, but it was my idea to go this day instead of waiting out the weather for several days.  The wind started picking up when we got to the begining of the main trail.  There was a sign with a warning on it.  It asked: Do you have appropriate gear? Is the weather ok?  Do you have enough food and water? Do you have appropriate experience or stamina to continue?  We answered no to all of these questions, except food and water.  For some reason we didn’t take the sign seriously.  We probably should have.

 

The beginning of the trail head was pretty mild; a little windy, a little rainy and a little rocky.  But as we approached the summit the wind picked up, throwing the rain and dirt into our faces and making it hard to stand at times.  At one point I told Ashlie we should turn back because I was worried about her health.  Just minutes before she had told me she couldn’t feel her butt or her legs, she was that cold.  She stubbornly told me “No, we started this we are going to finish it.”  We continued on and in a little while she had to change her tights.  We did this in open, wind whipping and rain falling.  Her legs were bright red.  I was worried.  She was worried, but we both decided we had come too far to turn around.  

We continued up and up and up.  Finally we got close to the summit and fell in behind the Taiwanese couple that had passed us on the trail earlier.  They had encountered the same problem we had, strong winds making it almost impossible to move forward.  We tried to wait out the strong gales, but every time there was a lull, the winds continued to blow just as hard a few second after.  It was clear that the weather would not calm down and we would have to press on regardless.

I have no idea.

 

At this time you could feel the cold to your bones.  The wet and the wind was making it almost unbearable.  I had it better than Ashlie and the Taiwanese guy (John) hiking with us.  He was shaking from the cold and Ashlie was trying with all her might to keep moving her legs, just to keep them warm.

We followed John’s (the Taiwanese guy) lead through the first of many difficult pieces of the trail.  This one was between the red crater and the mountain edge and I swear the winds were much higher than the predicted 35 kmh.  They were blowing us off our feet, forcing us to our knees to crawl in some places.  This part of the hike was excruciatingly difficult.  Every time I made it to the shelter of a rock I was huffing and puffing and thankful I had made it.   

At one point all I could think was “I don’t want to do this anymore.” Like a little kid.  I knew it was an unreasonable and unreal thought and had to push it from my mind.  When Ashlie followed me into the shelter of the bolder we told each other how scared we were and how we would help each other through it.  We knew there was no turning back, it was just as dangerous if not more so to cross those treacherous strips of land on the downhill.  We knew there would be no helicopter, the winds were too high, it wouldn’t be able to come.  So we plowed forward.  I lead as best I could.  I willed myself to move forward, sometimes on hands and knees.  It was during this time that the wind, constantly whipping at my clothing creating an ungodly noise because of my plastic raincoat, shredded the raincoat I was wearing.  This exposed my unprotected layers completely.  The deep chill was now creeping through my coat, sweater, and several shirts.

The summit, of coarse I didn't take a picture.  I was cold!

Thankfully we didn’t have too much further to go.  We went up and over the summit and then we started heading down the mountain once again.  We were still wet and cold but there was less wind and we were moving much faster.  Just on the other side of the summit we got to see the crater lakes and the sun peeped in and out while we moved through the volcanic area.  The rain was letting up as well, and being around the volcano was marginally warmer than being on the top of the mountain.  You could see the steam escaping from cracks around the lakes and the gravely sand track we were hiking down was warm, as I discovered the few times I fell on my butt.

 

The lakes were stunning, but obscured on and off by the cloud cover. Here are some what they should have been and what we got shots. I think you can figure out which ones we took.

 

Emerald Lake and Blue Lake

 Ashlie and I kept talking about “if only…” it were sunny, it was summer, it didn’t rain.  You get the idea.  The hike would have been much different.  *shrugs* Can’t change it now.   

Mt. Doom (Ngauruhoe) in the background.  I think this photographer did way better than I could have done.

 The other side of the mountain was much more relaxed.  There were less steep climbs, less rain, and it seemed like the wind had given up trying to put it’s icy fingertips into our insides.  So we gradually warmed up and got to enjoy some of the scenery.  We started joking and talking, and walking faster.  It was funny every time we saw a sign that said how much farther and how much time we had to hike we sped up.  Yet we always took longer than the sign.  We wanted to get off that mountain.   

I took this one.  Really pretty on the other side of the mountain.

We did eventually get to the end around 2:00.  This was an hour and 30 minutes before our shuttle bus came.  We were so cold we just called them, and the rest of our group came down.  Lots of others joined us at the bottom of the mountain as well, a few were seasoned hikers who thought nothing of it, but most were like us.  They were surprised and ill prepared for the adventure that awaited them.  It wasn’t the famous Mt. Doom we hiked, but it sure as felt like it and we would have if the weather had permitted it (it was closed that day).

We got back and hot showers were more than welcome.  Ashlie jumped into the hot tub as well.  Then we made dinner and crashed.  

Rotorua: boiling mudd and hitch hiking

 We had to make a quick stop at the grocery store before we headed to Rotarua, and we had a good amount of time to do so.  Jacko, our couch surfing host, said he would chip in for about half of the food but we shouldn’t come empty handed.  Also on his profile it said he loved trying new things and ethnic foods.  So we went with chili.  It’s a cheap southern classic and delcious.  No problem.  After we picked up all the shopping we caught the bus to Rotorua.   

 Jacko hadn’t responded to my text yet when we got there.  So I tried calling and then went for the mandatory wait time before checking into a hostel.  When I called Jacko after about an hour later he said he was still in Wellington.  A family problem had come up when he was down there delaying his return to Rotorua until much later that night.  I told him not to worry and that we would just check into a backpackers.  He said he would pick us up in the morning.

Luckily there was Rotorua downtown backpackers right around the corner and it cost $20, nice!  They also had free pasta, free soup, free coffee and tea and the best part free internet!  Hell yes!  Free anything is good for me.  So we settled down for the night and got ourselves some soup and rolls for dinner.  Perfect.  We were both tuckered out, so we didn’t do any sightseeing that night.  There was a park we could have gone to see kiwi birds and possums.  But sleep sounded way better.

fried bread

  

We got up fairly early and had some coffee and granola bars.  Ashlie had a few things she had to sort out and was worried Jacko would come by too early.  It was the weekend, of course he was going to sleep in.  And he did.  He called just as Ashlie was finishing her phone calls, and then we got to meet Jacko with his beautiful daughter.  Both parties were very talkative, I enjoyed the flow of conversation.  He took us to the Saturday market and treated us to some meat on a stick.  I bought myself some spinach (I was feeling green deprived) and nibbled on that while we walked around.  Ashlie and I also got to try some Maori food.  It was called fried bread and its basically a deep fried ball of dough that you put jam, butter and cream in while hot.  It was delicious.  

After this little bit of fun Jacko informed us that he wanted some family time with his daughter.  He hadn’t seen her in a few days.  So he gave us a hand drawn map with a city walk on it.  He explained if we followed the map we would see most of Rotorua’s best sights.  The walk took about three hours and we should call him when we were done to meet up.  Ashlie and I didn’t mind this and he took our bags back to his house making sure we knew where he lived as well.  

So we started the walk in the park and that was pretty cool by itself.  There was boiling mud, steamy holes and weird colored rocks everywhere.  We stopped by a café on the water front and enjoyed a latte and talked about how smelly this place was, but we could get used to it. 

 We had to double back at this point, because we realized that we had missed the living Maori village.  So we went back to check it out.  It was pretty cool, all red, black and white.  There were not very many people around, but looked interesting.

 After that we walked past a white water lake and into the center of town.  Apparently this lake is not too safe to swim in.  All the volcanic activity in the area has left deposits of sulfur in the water and it’s quite warm.

Rotorua was having their 50^th Marathon that day.  So there were people everywhere.  Ashlie even rooted some of the runners on.  In town we found a coin save (like a dollar general) and I got a hat and Ashlie got a few things as well.  Then it was off the Jacko’s.

When we got there he put us right to work making dinner.  It was easy breezy.  Ashlie made it too spicy for Jacko’s daughter, but he said she was picky anyway.   When we all had finished our chili with rice and fresh bread, Jacko randomly asked me to make a dessert.  “What do you have?” “Apples” “I can make you an apple pie!”  And I did.  No recipe, apple pie from scratch.  I wonder how often he gets that response from couch surfers?

 After apple pie making, while we were having a few beers and Jacko told us about the business he is starting.  He’s going to be a tour guide.  He is almost ready to start.  The walk that we had done is going to be his tour.  It's just for people who only have a few hours and don’t necessarily want to spend an arm and a leg to go see all the sights.  Many of the attractions in Rotorua cost over a $100.  Ashlie and I were discussing whether or not it was worth it earlier in the day.  We both thought it was a great idea and told him to keep in touch so we could help him out.  

We devised a plan for our morning.  We knew the bus schedule pretty well and it was not forgiving.  If we took the bus we could go in the morning and not see anymore of Rotorua, but if we decided to hitch hike we could defiantly see a show or something else that was equally as cool.  So we decided to go to Te puia in morning.  It had a show and geysers. Kick ass!  

carved spirit

We walked to Te puia, it took about 45 minutes from the information center where we had booked tickets.  The first thing we saw when we walked in were the many guardians of the different realms.  The Maori spirits that represent different aspects of nature.

After that we wandered over to the meeting house and got to see was the welcoming ceremony.  This was part of the show we booked.  One tribe member needed to be accepted by the other tribe.  We had to choose a chief, so a older Kiwi gentleman took the roll grudgingly (his wife volunteered him).  The warriors of the Maori tribe did some intimidation tactics, but then left a leaf on the ground to be taken by our leader.  Our leader accepted the leaf.  The Maori then burst into song and we entered the meeting house.  Once inside our leader and the tribe's leader press noses, like Eskimo kisses, and we were considered family.  At this point we are welcome into the traditional meeting house.

welcoming cerimony

Once inside we were introduced to a wealth of Maori culture.  So much so I don’t really have the words to describe.  We got to see traditional singing that sounded like opera.  The women were very talented.  We saw and participated in Poi, a dance with soft balls attached to the end of ropes.  This is meant to improve hand and eye coordination as well as overall fitness.  Ashlie and I made fools of ourselves on stage with about 30 other women, but it was fun.  I was never good at synchronized anything.  It takes me a lot of practice to do anything like that correctly.  My favorite part of the show was when the men were called up to do the Haka, the Maori war dance.  I loved seeing the guys do the Pūkana (funny face).  It was so much fun.

singing

poi dancing

name of the Maori village we visited. Damn that's long!

After the show we got a tour.  We headed off to see how the traditional weaving and carving was done.  Both were used as a written language.

puipui

The piupiu, named for the sound it creates when worn, takes 4-6 weeks to make.  This skirt is made from flax.  The flax must be soaked and dyed to make the patterns and set the bead-like weave.

Random fact anyone? A common phrase you hear from the Maori is “The uglier the handsomer.”  This is because the uglier you were the more likely you were able to defeat your enemies and scare the living daylights out of them.  This made you valuable to the tribe, increasing your prowess.  

We saw several meeting houses.  Inside these houses the tribe can get together and do carving, weaving and other things like meetings and what not.  This is a community space as well as a spiritual space.  You must take off your shoes to enter.  Reminds me a bit of Korea.

Tattoos were traditionally carved into the skin with a chisel type tool.  Women often had chin and lip tattoos, and this is now reemerging with the younger generation.   Men would usually have tattoos on their cheeks as well as limbs. Only the chief was supposed to have a full face tattoo, but now a days you often see many men with full face tattoos.

We also got to see a kiwi bird!  We couldn’t take a picture, so I stole some from google.  But they were way bigger than I thought they were.  For some reason I thought they were the size of a chicken.  Boy was I wrong. More like three times that size.. okay maybe two.

 The enclosure we saw them in was night time during the day and day at night.  Kiwi birds are nocturnal, so they did this to help visitors view them.  I don’t know how I feel about disturbing their natural patterns, but lots of people want to see them, so I get it. 

 And now onto random facts: When the female is laying 60%  of her body weight is the egg. The male kiwi bird incubates the eggs.  Most kiwi birds live to 60 in captivity but only 30 in wild. The population has greatly decreased over the years because of non native species invading.

After all our New Zealand cultural bits and pieces we went to see the thermal area attached.  In Rotorua there is an underground lake heated by magma.  This is what makes the thermal area and geysers.  People used to use the boiling water to cook food and steam the meat.  European used to come and lounge in the hot mud pools as well, for their health and beauty treatments.  I personally think that’s a bit dangerous, but I wouldn’t mind having a boiled egg out of this stuff.

One of the main attractions at Te puia was the geyser.  It went off about once an hour, and boy did we see it go.  

 

geyser at Te puia, Pohutu

Besides the geyser there was lots of other beautiful things to see.

a sapphire lake

boiling mud

volcanic beauty

 It was a good decision to see more of Rotorua.  I'm so glad we stayed for the morning.

random beautiful pictures from Rotorua

So the plan was to start hitching around one, but we really didn’t get out there until 2:45ish.  The walk back from Te Puia was about an hour.  I forget about how long it takes to get places without a car. We also said goodbye to Jacko and he insisted we had lunch with him before we left.  He was such a sweetie.

 The weather was beautiful, so we had that on our side for hitching.  Also there had just recently been a marathon in Rotorua.  It also was the end of Easter school break so kids and family all had to be heading back home.  All these things were great odds to get us to national park in four hours time.  Despite all that the beginning of our hitching was a bit discouraging.  We waited a good 45 minutes before someone picked us up. 

citroen

 Our first ride was a lovely older man in a 80’s citroen.  I had never seen one before and was fascinated.  This guy was amazing.  At first he didn’t talk much, but then we got him going on the local landscape and the thermal activity and the guy was like an encyclopedia.  He just chatted away about the thermal power plant, the hot springs over there, the faults and the dangers of living in Christchurch.  It was great.  He couldn’t take us all the way to where we were going, but about halfway.  This was more than good for us.  He dropped us off near a busy roundabout and wished us luck.  

The next lady that picked us up was a marathon runner from Wellington.  She had hiked the Tongariro crossing and gave us tips and talked about other great places to hike as well.  She took us another half way, if she went to National Park (our final destination), it would have been an extra hour out of her way. 

 This time we were in the middle of nowhere.  The nearest town would be quite a walk, and the sun was starting to go down.  I knew this was going to be the hardest part of our hitch hiking, but we were so close!  I joked around and tried to make Ashlie and I smile as much as I could.  We were super lucky in that the 2^nd car that passed us picked us up and brought us another half way.  They were working at the Sir Edmond Hillary outdoor pursuits center, working with kids .  

Now we were now a mere 25 minutes from our accommodation!  But it was dark.  We both thought that surely people will be more inclined to pick up two young women, freezing and hitching in the dark.  We were dead wrong.  No one stopped and some people even flashed us with their bights.  I’m not sure why, but it wasn’t nice.  

 Eventually we all but gave up hope and called our accommodation to see what we could do.  They came and picked us up, the dear souls.  They totally didn’t have to do that.  Then after we were waiting for them a truck doubled back.  He said he thought he saw someone sitting on the side of the road and should go back and check to make sure that we were ok.  That was at 6:29… we said we would give up on hitching at 6:30, but had been despairing because of so many cars passing without even slowing down and the cold and the dark.  It was good to see that there are kind people in the world.  Windy picked us up in the shuttle van about 20 minutes later.  She is looking after the lodge for her daughter, who was on vacation.  She said she does it every year.  They live in Australia usually, but have been staying in NZ more and more to help her daughter out.