Tongariro Crossing and Mt Maunganui

I originally had a funny and cynical post planned for this about how hard it was for me to finally get to Tongariro and how ridiculous the people I went with were, but instead I'll spare you my bad humour and show you pictures(did I just instinctively type humoUr? oh snap!).

Anyway, the Tongariro Crossing is quickly becoming the most popular day hike in the world. Apparently thousands of people do it per day in the summer. It is pretty freakin' cool, and it's where a lot of the Lord of the Rings was filmed(especially Mordor). Here's a view from the hut we stayed at. I'm obsessed with the tussock in this country.



The next day I escaped the group I was with and did the crossing by myself. Thank god. Here's a picture of the stuff the track is made out of..


Which turns into this. This is what you're walking on most of the way. This or something that resembles a sidewalk. Sometimes tourism makes me angry.






Mt Ngauruhoe behind Mt Tongariro




Emerald Lakes. They're actually emeraldy green. Very cool.



View on the way to the summit of Ngauruhoe(Mt DOOOM!)




The way down from the summit involved lots of amazing scree sliding. And lots of scree in my shoes.




1. Camp Linden, much? 2. Really?



This sunset reminded me of the good old Smokies.



The next weekend I went climbing at Mt Maunganui. Really cool views. Lots of rain. Here's a quick photo of the crag.




That's all for now. My time here is quickly coming to a close. Ben will be here in a few days, we'll be climbing and such for a few days around here, and then I finally venture down to the South Island. Pray to the weather gods.. we're gonna need it. Then I come back and take some easy schmeasy finals. Then Traci will be stopping by for a few days on her way to Australia. And then I need to find something epic to do for a two weeks after that(I changed my flight today for a little later... eek!). I'm thinking being a hippie on an organic farm and hopefully tramping in something that won't be pure rainy shite. And then it's back to the mitt!!!!

Fall Break Part II

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been lazy. But now I'm sick and in bed all weekend, so you get to look at some more pictures!

After Taranaki I pretty much had a whole week to entertain myself in Auckland for the rest of break. What's the best place for that? The zoo, of course!










The Red Hat Society exists in New Zealand, too, Mom!



I couldn't get a better photo, but the orangutans were playing hide-from-baby-monkey-under-the-blanket. Long story short, my brother is a monkey, too?



I finally made it to the beach in Auckland the next day. Yep, I'm the creeper taking photos of children.




And then I got to go climbing! A few of us decided to go to a new crag they've been developing. It sounded easy enough... but it took us like 4 hours to find the place. I decided extreme crag finding is a hobby in itself. Anyway, this is a bug I found on me once we finally got there. The kiwis called at "sticky bug." Technical term right there.




View from the top of a climb.




Joerg belaying from up top. It was a really cool place once we finally found it. I was hoping to finally get some multi-pitch climbing in, but we were basically in a cloud all day, so weather/time wouldn't permit. Maybe next time. And maybe then there won't be a drill chillin' at the top of a climb, leading me to believe the bolts were only a few days old. Sketch.





I think this was the next weekend. I finally made it down to the Quarry in Auckland for some climbing. I got there real early, but lucky for me there was soccer! I ended watching the whole game and got really into it. I'm pretty sure the parents thought I was a girlfriend to one of the players. Nope, just a creeper watching some highschoolers play soccer. Anyway, I'll spare you more climbing photos since most of you don't know the difference between a crimp and jug, and move on to my yachting adventure!


My friend Connor invited me for a day on a boat with a friend of his parents. Uh, yes! I've always wanted to go sailing.




Turns out we're going yachting on a catamaran. This was like THE biggest boat in harbour. Sweet as.


I've decided to re-evaluate my life so I can buy a yacht and sail the world. Brain surgeon? Mwahaha.





Fancy schmancy.




We sailed to Motuihe, another island near Auckland. I spent most of the time talking to the couple who brought us, because A. I don't get along with people my own age? and B. They had the coolest stories. Anyway, I found out that during WWII(I think two) these military guys had influenza(I think it was influenza... I need a better memory) and were sent out to this island to be quarantined/die. Pretty rough.




Pretttttyyyy.



After a swim back to the boat from the beach, a serious reconsideration about the triathalon I'm aspiring toward, and a failed attempt at gracefully jumping of the railing into the ocean, it was back to the harbour! I even got to sail the ship for a while.


People are always talking about Cormandel and how there are hot water beaches. Basically, you dig a hole and the geothermal activity(which I can tell you all about... I just finished a ten page paper on geothermal energy. woo!) heats of up the water and you have a hot pool to sit in. Cool concept, but not worth the money, in my opinion. People keep trying to get me to go. I keep saying no. Anyway, I was awoken on a Friday morning by a group of girls who had rented a car not knowing they needed someone over 21 to drive. I said sure if I didn't have to pay for petrol. Yay for a cheap trip! And I got to drive! On the left side of the road! Surprisingly, we survived.


Well, because of the car fiasco, we got there too late and it was high tide, so no digging holes for us. We could still see the geothermal activity bubbling though, and it was hot enough to burn your feet while standing in the middle of the ocean. I had a blast playing in the water/sand. But no one else did. Wasn't I the one who didn't want to go? People are weird.







We then jetted on over to Cathedral Cove. Apparently this beach is real famous. Pretty cool. I thought the coolest part was the caves you can kinda see in the background. You could totally go into them and chill out on another mini beach inside the cave. Coolest camping shelter ever? I think so.



Oh! And here's a video of some other monkeys(Siamangs) at the zoo. Siamang couples guard their territory by coming up with their own little duet. It can be heard for over a kilometre. It's intense. Just watch. (And sorry for the head tilt you have to do at the beginning, I always forget I can't rotate videos.)

Mt Taranaki

I decided to pry myself away from the climbing trips and go backpacking. A few people were doing the Taranaki Around the Mountain Circuit. This is where The Last Samurai was filmed since it apparently resembles some mountain in Japan. Anyway, sounded good enough to me, so I was soon on my way. After a nice 6 hour nap in the car, I awoke to views of the mountain we were about to conquer!



After about a 4 hour hike the first day, I had my first overnight experience in New Zealand backcountry tramping(experienced trampers only!).



We slept in huts like this each night. You call this backcountry? Yeah. Right.





Bell's Falls



They have a day hike in this area called the Enchanted Forest. I swear I saw a few fairies.



Experienced trampers only? Come on. There's a metal ladder!









This once for Dad. One of the kids on my trip knew all about native plants, so I learned all sorts of names and stuff to wow whoever will listen to me. This picture is of lancewood. The one on the right isn't dying.. it's actually the adolescent version of the one to the left. It's also got really sharp rugged edges, and in the South Island they're a lot more pronounced. Up here, there weren't as many moa, so with the lack of predator they evolved to be not so prickly.



Can you see the geology?!??









This is a series of the sunset/rise from Waiua Gorge(ous!.. Sorry.. had to do it.)















Above the bush line!




So we met this crazy American who told us a way to go off trail to get to "the coolest hut of his two months tramping in NZ." So we followed this stream bed up, up and up. Into a cloud.



Who can explain the square cloud to me?




Finally at the hut.



He was right. Simply amazing.








Syme hut. If you look closely you can see that the hut and the long drop toilet are tied down with cables because of the high winds. The whole structure, inside and out, looks like it was attacked by dinosaurs from people coming up here with crampons and axes and trying to dig out the doors to get in in the winter. Intense.





This next day we awoke to gorgeous weather and summitted from the south face. It's apparently a lot harder(and I was dying. It was steep and the whole one step forward two steps back thing with the scree and snow sucks), but here's our obligatory summit photo. 2518 metres. Going down this back to Syme was the most miserable thing ever. Way too steep and unstable. Miserable.





So those two mountains in the distance are Tongariro and Ruapehu, aka Mt Doom and Mordor. I'll be going there next weekend hopefully.



Sunrise from the Waingongoro hut.



This is a ski field. I'd rather go to Mt Brighton?




This hike out back to the car. Yay mountains!