It's even more amazing than I remembered it...

  Wellington, New Zealand
Monday, November 5, 2007

Hey hey hey!

Man, this place is intoxicating!  So when I first

life is awesome

got to Auckland I figured I'd spend a day or two there and then head down to the South Island, but it's been two weeks now and I'm still playing around in the north island.  After the caving trip from the last entry, Garrett (the kid I'd been traveling with since Auckland) and I decided to get down to Tongariro to do the hike we had planned on

it was colder than it looks...

doing before we got sidetracked in Rotorua.  Basically New Zealand has these ten hikes that are labeled the ten "Great Walks" of the country and they are all simply breathtaking.

ahh.. the view!

The Tongariro Crossing is one of these ten "walks" and it goes over two active volcanoes and ahhh... just look at the pictures :)  So we got to this tiny town just outside of the national park and after a quick trip to the grocery store to stock up

mmm mmmm..

on camping food, we were ready to go. 

The first day of the hike was unbelievable. We summited one of the active volcanoes and scrambled up some great rock formations,

the view from our hut on the lake

but maaaan, I miss the days of Nepal and having all the food cooked for you.  I don't know how I managed to find fifteen pounds of just food to carry for three days, but somehow I did.  Anyways, we got to the first hut in the early afternoon and had the rest of the day to enjoy the paradise.  The New Zealand hut system is like nothing else in the world... all the major hikes have these

on the summit

unbelievable little cabins with gas burners and bunk beds. This one we were staying at had a huge porch overlooking a magnificent lake and made for a perfect reading spot to spend away the afternoon.  Just before sunset these two other American kids showed up to the hut and we had our crew set for the rest of the week.  The next few days were spent hiking all day through amazing terrain and camping out in these awesome huts along the way.

volcanic crater

Everything was perfect until we woke up on the last morning to a pounding rainstorm.  We waited for a couple of hours but it didn't look like it was going to die down so raincoat, pack cover, gaitors... and off we were.  I think I can honestly say it was one of the worst hiking conditions I've ever been in... save the 17-bathroom-trips-food-poisoning incident back in Nepal.

Sunset over the active volcanic thermals

After about twenty minutes of hiking we realized that it was going to be miserable and decided that running the 7-hour hike sounded like a much better idea. Ha, I mean, it went by faster but ooh  man did we look ridiculous when we got to the end. Absolutely soaking wet, we walk into the only building at the end of the trail and it happened to be a five star hotel. Well, they felt so bad for us (I can't imagine how pitiful we must have looked!) that they gave us towels and let us use their facilities for free!  Ahhh, and so once we were nice and clean and warm, we hopped on the shuttle back to the town and

inside the cabin

feasted on a fantastic, fantastic meal.

The next day I said goodbye to my new friends and hopped on a bus down to Wellington where I made my typical "hi- you don't really know me but I'm a friend of your friend from back home..." phone calls and showed up at Jan and Karly's house, friends of friends from back home :)  I've been here for a couple of days and they've been fabulous hosts.  I got my 4-am night out in Wellington on Friday and in a bit we're going to go to rock climbing. I think that's my favorite part of New Zealand- everyone here is active and loves to do the samet higns I love to do!

After this.. well I found a cheap ticket down to the South Island yesterday that leaves late tonight (I love buying plane tix the night before... there's always something exciting about it!) so we'll climb, do dinner, and then I'll be off for some more adventures...

Keep me updated,
Maia