Onward we go with the adventure. After the caving I got a ride from a Swiss guy that had bought his own van upon his arrival to New Zealand. I had planned on going to Rotorua, the "cultural capital" of New Zealand, in terms of Maori culture. I changed my plans to go down to Tongariro National Park to do a one day trek through the most impressive 3 volcanos in New Zealand. For all you Lord of the Rings fans out there, I am ashamed to say I haven't seen any of them, this was the spot where it all happened. We hiked an hour and a half onto a desert plain that was overshadowed by a huge volcanic cinder cone that reached deep into the clouds. The summit of Mt. Ngauruhoe is an optional climb and...

being with a group of guys, there was no way we were going to let this thing go unclimbed. It was about a 60% grade climb up the thick, rocky, black volcanic dirt that is all that remains from the top of this mountain. At the summit you can look out and see absolutely nothing for many many miles.

The crater that was left from the explosion a few thousand years ago is absolutely massive. It takes about 20 minutes to walk around the edge of the crater and ponder the power that comes out of one of those puppies when they blow. The clouds and high winds were whipping off the edge of the crater looking like waves at the beach. There was snow at the top which made the final climb a bit interesting.

The decent off the summit involves a technical Nordic Track type motion that ends up causing serious rock slides towards the few scattered hikers making their way up. A few small rocks would pick-up a big rock and so on until you had to whistle and scream to those down below. And this was just the warm-up to the day.

There was another 6 hours and two volcanos left of the hike. I got split up from the Swiss guy, so the rest of the day was spent hiking solo in the drizzle that began shortly thereafter. The most impressive crater, from an eruption that actually blew the entire side off a mountain, was completely fogged out by the time I got to the top. I waddled on down the edge of the crater until the fog cleared near the base.

Many of these craters still have "active geothermal areas." And for those of you who wish to know what those are- they are vents from below the surface that blow straight sulfur vapor day in and day out. It's natures way of keeping the beast below from building up. So pretty much it smells like the earth ripped a monster squishy in its pants for the majority of the hike.

The rest of the hike was through "virgin bush" decending back down to the low alpine scrub. A long day of hiking, but having never seen volcanos before, it was well worth it.

This Swiss guy is one hell of a character. His English is iffy at times, but he ALWAYS tries to sound like he's some kind of scholar or academic God. I would have kept on-a-travellin', but he has a van which sounded like a great way to get around.

Everytime I would point out something that was really cool, he would say... " yeah, that's quite good." "Quite good" was the best he could come up with when peering into the crater of a monster volcano or looking at an amazing piece of arss walking down the road. I finally just turned to him at one point and said NO... that's not "quite good," that's "fucking great." From then on even slightly cool things have been dubbed by Michael of Switzerland in a funny little accent as "fucking great."

That's my boy Michael.

I figured it would be a riot to go to the wine festival in Hawke's Bay and see what kind of performance he could turn out with the tasting folks. Sure enough the first place we go to he's got about 50 questions about no-nonsense wine jargon he needs answered before he'll drink the 7 drops they put in his glass. Meanwhile I slug the "taste" and come up with a brilliant... "hmmm, can I try the (read the label right quick) 99 cabernet? Wow, that's BOLD! Can I try the Merlot? Wow, that's Oaky!" And so on.

You pay 10 dollars and get this wine glass that hangs from your neck on a string. It was definitely a college-esque tasting. We make it to the second vineyard and stayed for the duration of the afternoon. I met an Irish guy that had married a Kiwi girl and lived in the area. This guy had about a case of wine in him from the days activities and immediately adopted me to "sip" with him.

He had made friends with the "taste pourers" at a beautiful vineyard called Trinity Hill. They had 16 products to try and my Irish buddy taught me to act, in a professional manner, as if I needed another taste that may pursuade me to purchase many-a-bottle. He had broken the system and it worked... well.

Meanwhile Swiss Miss has his nose deep in a glass of 2002 Blush asking what gives it the apricot after taste. I got him talking to a big girl that kept him occupied all afternoon talking about their favorite wines. At this point the Irish guy is wrestling a girlfriend of his on the front lawn of the exclusive vineyard.

To make a LONG wine-drenched afternoon short, the Irish guy and his wife invited us to come to their farm and have a barbeque before going out to their local pub. We couldn't resist and joined their big group over to the farm. I manned the grill cooking chicken, sausage, steak and mushrooms. We had a great BBQ complete with sweetcorn from their crop. Several hours of dancing at the pub rounded out Day 1 of the wine experience.

We said our goodbye's and thank you's in the morning before heading out to the vineyards for day 2. We found a great place where Swiss Miss could stick his nose in some more vino and sit up on a hill, catching some rays overlooking the vines.

I taught Michael the basics of football for the Super Bowl viewing that cranked up yesterday afternoon at 12:00. It was good to see the Patty's take care of business, although they didn't show the commercials over here.

I am now in the South Island... cranking up for another wine festival this weekend. I broke the news to Swiss Miss today that we would no longer be together and he explained to me that the fun we had was none other than... "QUITE GOOD."