Steve’s Travel Blog

Lots to update so I may have to do a few seperate blogs.

On Dec 27th I hiked the Tongoriro Crossing which is normaly a 7-8 hour hike over a mountain.  It was fantastic scenery and I completed it in 5 1/2 hours.  It started through some forest areas and the up the side of the mountain throught the south crater and then the red crater.  The color in the red crater reminded me of the painted desert in Arizona.  THe views were great but at the top it was pretty clloudy so we could not see very far.  THe first part down was really sandy and steep so i ran it actually hopped would be a better word like i was skiing down it.  I was flying by other poeple who chose to do it slowly and when I went by one woman all I heard was her saying holt shit!!!  We came to 3 lakes after the crater and then more forest that was like a rain forest.  THere were a couple of young guys that were saying that the crater (old volcano)  was steaming and I hated to ruin their story but it was just clouds that were low to the ground, I just had a laugh and continued on.  Tons of fun and after we went to the hostel for the night and they had a hot tub that got used and a few drinks to celebrate the adventure.

This is going to sound scary but the next morning I was up at 7 and went for an hour long jog, I keep this up and I might actually get skinny.  I have been losing weight since the start of the trip and so far I am not putting anything back on in NZ.  Our first stop on the 28th was at a small town known for having the largest carrot.  I know I thought that northern Albarta was the only place for such crazy things.  Our next stop was at a town called Bulls and is the only place where you can get milk from Bulls.  The main thing for the day was to get to Wellington which is a bigger city on the North island.  We went for a walk around and into the TePapa museum which was free and a lot of what they were showing is stuff that we have already or will be doing.  HTe rest of the eveing was going to be relaxed but we wnded up meeting up with some others from earlier in the trip and got involved in Trivia night.  We came in 3rd and got nothing for it.

Dec 29 was a relax day in Wellington.  Ernst, Alain and I decided that we were going to go fishing so we went to this fishing shop and bought some line, weights, and hooks then to the grocery store for some squis to use as bait.  We hand lined fished right off the pier and we did not need a license.  Alain had never fished before and Ernst was pretty new to the idea as well.  I tied all the lines to sticks and offf we went.  I caughtthe first 3 fish and then Ernst got 2 and finally Alain got 1 and he was so happy.  I also hooked onto some mussels when I let the line drop to the bottom and dragged it along.  It was a grand day and we spent very little.  I gutted, cleaned and scaled the fish at the pier with my pocket knife and then we picked up some other groceries for supper.  One of the best yet.  That eveing we met up with some others from Stary including Olive and Karen and went to a bar down the road.  We had some fun but I took it easy because I needed to get up early the next day.

Dec 30, I was up at 6 to catch the ferry to the south island and a town called Picton  The feries were like what you see at Vancouver to the island and the scenery was awesome.  It took about 3 hours and then we met up with our new bus and driver (ricky) who was a pretty cool dude.  We stopped in Motueka and I flew in a Mirco-light plane, which is a small 2 seat plane but more like a hang glider with an engine.  I got to see the whole valley and all around Abel Tasman National Park.  That night our hostel was on a farm and yes it was called Old Macdonald’s Farm.  We had a choice of dorms rooms or tents and I picked the tent which was a great choice because they were like the big hunting tents with lots of room.  There were 4 to a tent and Olive and Karen were also in my tent.  We had a group supper and sat around a campfire and had some drinks.

New Years Eve (the worst day yet)!!!  If anything was going to go wrong it sis on this day and i pretty much have no one to blame but me and it does now make for a pretty funny story.  We decided to go sailing today and i was really excited about it.  It started out a an awesome day for about the first hour and I even sailed the boat (30 foot catamiran).  It started to get pretty windy and we were getting wet but still fun I decided to go to the front of the boat and got completely soked which was fun until the clouds came in and there was no sun.  I was really cold and part  way through I lost my ball cap and sunglasses.  We stoped for lunch and I was smart enough to bring some dry clothes so I changed into them.  I was feeling alot better and grabbed my lunch and hopped off the back of the boat.  I tripped and went head first into the water and now i was soaked again and so was my lunch.  Karen saw the whole thing and could not stop laughing.  I am sure that it looked really funny but i was pissed off.  THe skipper went on the boat and got me a dry coat but I was so cold I couldn’t even eat my lunch.  I sat below in one of the hull the whole way back to try to stay warm and we ended up breaking a rutter on the boat becasue the wind was so strong.  Thank god the rest of the evening was better.  We celebrated at a pub in the midle of the Abel Tasman National park, it was a real hippy place and played reagge music all night.  Zoe got dunk very fast and was passed out by 10:30 but everyone else made it to new years.  It was different than any other but still fun.  I drank but agian not to much and made the sensible decision of going to bed at about 2 while others just stayed up.  I stayed on for another night and relaxed at the beach and chilled all day and night.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 11:32 pm and is filed under New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.