| North Island Highlights 02apr2004: Just arrived from NZ to Sydney last night... I'm staying outside of Sydney with my gracious friend from Roche, Balu and his wife Anitha, his young daughter Anya, & his mom Indira. Ah, but more on Australia to come later... Back to NZ, I picked up my college roommate Stacy and his wife Cristina on the morning of the 23rd & since it was too early to check into the swanky SkyTower Hotel, we drove up across the bridge to Devonport for a little walking around the North Head and to have lunch. Stacy likes to make a game out of tasting all the beers & wines he can during his travels, so he has Cristina & I rate each of the bevvies we try during the course of our travels together on a scale of 1-to-9 (don't ask me why we settled on 9, butI suppose it's high enough that only a Guinness can actually get the top score on that scale!) It was a little stressful to negotiate city traffic (even before having a beer at lunch!), so we decided to only spend the one night in Auckland. But in the afternoon we visited the Lion Red brewery & did their tour (at this point we probably sound like a bunch of alcoholics!)... it was decent but not spectacular. Lion Red makes Steinlager, which is probably the most famous exported NZ beer, but we found that we liked many of the NZ-available ones like Monteith's and Speight's better. The next day we drove to Waitomo for our all-day Lost World trip with Waitomo Adventures the following morning. We did some neat short walks in the area, including this really cool limestone natural bridge in the afternoon before settling in for the night at our train-car motel lodging (I kid you not... they also had an old renovated airplane with two motel units built within it) The Lost World epic was a full day caving adventure starting off with a somewhat nerve-racking 100m abseil into the cave... Not an activity for those who are afraid of heights! After that, we spent the day negotiating the underground river. This involved travelling upstream through rather chilly water, climbing around rapids & waterfalls, crawling through teeny-tiny spaces between rocks and small corridors in the cave, and getting a chance to jump off about a 20fr high ledge into a pool below. Oh, and of course there were glowworms *everywhere*! It was quite cool to shut off our headlamps for a few minutes inside the cave & see nothing but the neon green glowing above like a starry sky w/ it's own random pattern of constellations you could make up as you gaze above you. Our guides Robby & Russell were a couple of seemingly carefree young guys, but they also knew their way around the caves and all the climbing equipment so even though it was a thrilling trip you never felt like you were in any real danger. (side note: On the bus ride to the cave, Robby was our driver. "Over there," says Robby, "a meteor hit the ground." <pause> Stupid blond-haired American tourist: "Cool, how long ago was that?" "<pause> "I'm lying to you. Don't believe anything I ever say, I lie a lot. It's actually just a sinkhole, but I do fool loads of people with that one." Oh. About 10 minutes later: "There's another spot where a meteor hit.") After the caving adventure, we headed up to Rotorua & did the luge rides, good bang for your buck on that) followed by a Maori hangi. The hangi is a Maori feast and the trip included a traditional Maori warrior's greeting, visiting a reconstructed Maori viliage, a Maori music & dance show, and finally a huge Maori feast, cooked somewhat like a Hawaiian luau via a big ol' hole in the ground. Our bus-driver/host was quite a talented musician type who greeted us with about 40 phrases from different languages, spit out rapid fire complete with wittty repartee (sp?) almost like a stand up comedian. Good fun. Next day we drove south towards Lake Taupo, stopping at the Thermal Pools of Wai-o-tui (I think! that's the right name!), which was even more fun, scenic, & interesting than I even expected. From there we carried on to Tongariro National Park, where we planned to do the Tongaririo Crossing 17km day hike through the volcanos of the park the next day. Unfortunately, high winds, rain & snow in the higher elevations of Tongariro NP cancelled our plans (the shuttle buses cancelled their trips to the trailhead and there was even a rescue mission sent out that morning to help out a couple of late-starting trampers (NZ for hikers) who had gotten into a spot of trouble. We were kinda dejected to miss out on what's often called NZ's greatest day hike, so we drove south along a scenic gravel/dirt road along the Whanganui River to the west coast town of Wanganui (the missing 'h' is not a typo, no idea why the river & town are spelled differently). So we rolled on down to Wellington for the afternoon & evening where I dropped off S&C the following morning for their ferry ride to the south. I still had a full day left in NZ so I drove back up to Tongariro in hopes that the weather would be nice for my last full day in NZ so I could do the Crossing. Luck was on my side as it was a spectacular sunny, relatively low-wind day up in the Tongariro NP... and this did turn out to be as spectacular as advertised. The colors of the volcanos up there were absolutely spectaculrar, especially the red rocks of Mt. Ngauruhue (last erupted in 1967ish) and the Red Crater of Tongariro. Plus, at the start of the hike you have views of Mt Ruepehu (last erupted in 1995/6) and even all the way out west to Taranaki. Two thumbs up!! So that's all folks from the North Island. Hope all's well with you back home... -PM 22mar2004: Just a quick update on the North Island thusfar... at the recommendation of my Roche & hoops pal Henry Chen (who I'll have to remember to add to my update list!), I spent the last coupla days in the Taranaki region, on the west coast of the North Island. Taranaki is a spectacular volcano which, as many mountains seem to do, ducks in & out of cloud covers during the course of most days. I was lucky enough to get to see the mountain from various vantage points during my stay in the region. I based myself in Inglewood, just 15km south of the main town in the area, New Plymouth. I won't drone on about all the different spectacular day walks I did on the South & East sides of the Mountain, but on the North side I did a kinda lesser known one that was recommended by a nice lady at DOC (Dept of Conservation) in New Plymouth. The Mangorei Track takes you up the Pouakai range, and I spent a solo, breezy night in the Pouakai Hut which although several miles away, seemed like a small stretch out to touch the summit! The other highlight of my stay in the Taranaki area was going to my first rugby match. The Super 12 is the rugby equivalent of the NBA, with pro clubs from NZ, Oz, & South Africa all competing in the same league. I had watched one thrilling match a coupla weeks ago between the spendy, Man Utd-ish Blues of Auckland and the Chiefs of Hamilton, just south of Auck). Inspired by that, I went to see the Wellington team, the Hurricanes, play against the Sharks of somewhere in South Africa (I haven't worked out in which cities each of these teams are based) in one of the Hurricanes' few home games they play in New Plymouth. The 'Canes dropped a relatively slow but competetive match that picked up at the end due to the close score, 21-20. I still don't really get all the penalties & stuff, but I know a what a try is! Unfortunately, I couldn't really ask stupid questions to the people around me because on my left were two 8-9 year old kids and to my right were two text-message-happy teenage girls. Gotta get my brother Jon to explain this game to me sometime. (side note: as I write this, the news is showing a clip of the Vet in Philly being blown up... good riddance!) Anyways, off to bed now as I'm running out of coins for the internet machine & I gotta get up earlyish to pick up S&C. Adios, -PM |