Walking On Volcanoes

Having missed out on doing the Tongariro Crossing on my way down the north island I decided to jump off the bus in Taupo again on the way back up to Auckland. There were a couple of people who'd been on the bus with me for a while so I had people to eat and drink with which was nice as I thought I might be on my own. None of them were mad ebough to do the walk though! The weather was good and I managed to signed up on a shuttle bus to get to the start of the trek. The only downside was that it left at 5.40am as there was supposed to be rain in the afternoon and it can take 7 or 8 hours to do the trek.
I just about managed to get up and loaded up with food for the trek and some waterproofs just in case. It was light when I started the walk at 7.30am and the sun was just rising over the volcanoes. There are 3 volcanoes in the Tongariro World Heritage Nnational Park - Mt Tongariro, Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Ruapehu and the crossing takes you past the first two. Mt Ngauruhoe was used as Mt Doom in the Lord Of The Rings films, so is pretty imposing.
The trek starts out reasonably flat and then you hit the Devil's Staircase. This is a steep climb up about 400m and is the hardest part of the trip. I was walking with 2 girls, but lost them on this part of the trek as they didn't cope with the climb that well. That gets you to the base of Mt Ngauruhoe summit, but it takes another 2 hours to get there and back and steam was venting from near the top so I decided not to go there.
Then you walk across a volcano crater which is a bit mad and slightly worrying. After another fairly steep climb you get to the Red Crater Ridge where there is a really good view of Red Crater which has some interesting rock formations from all the activity. It was a bit windy at the top, but not as bad as sometimes when people have to crawl to not get blown off! From there is a good view of the emerald lakes which are sulphur lakes. I stopped here for lunch and managed to slip over and land on my camera (see photo 3 - right in the middle - not a happy spot). Alas the camera broke completely and I've had to get a new one. I also got a really impressive bruise on my hip. I was fairly pissed off when I realised I'd broken the camera and set off turbo'ing down the other side and actually got to the other end in another 2.5 hours when it can take 4. At one point I ended up walking through clouds but it was mainly sunny which helped and in all it took me 5.5 hours which I reckon is a pretty decent time.
It's a pretty mad walk to do as Mt Ruapehu last erupted in 1996, Mt Ngauruhoe erupted in 1954 and Mt Tongaririo is still classified as active as well. Apparently the crater lake by Mt Ruapehu has been blocked by volcanic activity and is going to burst it's banks shortly and create a lahar (a mix of water and ash) which will probably take out the road and rail bridges nearby. They've got a warning system though so will have about 8 minutes to get everyone off the bridge...
Having done the walk I spent another day in Taupo by the lake (which is in fact the crater of a supervolcano), met up with Ricky our bus driver from the north island for a few beers and then caught the bus back to Auckland the next day.
I got into town around 7pm, got quickly changed and met up with Mike and Craig who I'd travelled a lot with and then jumped in a car with some friends of his and headed to Trusts Stadium where we had tickets for Snow Patrol. They were well worth the $80 (about 28 pounds) I paid for the ticket. They even played the Football Focus theme tune in the encore which was nice to remind me of home a bit! They only had 2 people serving at the bar though, so we queued for an hour for beer which was bit annoying.
Had to get up very early the next morning to fly to Sydney, luckily Craig was on the same flight so I had company at 6am when we got the bus to the airport. Was going to stay in Sydney for a bit, but have decided to head up the East Coast instead so am in Coffs Harbour at the moment and will head to Byron Bay soon.

Still Getting Wet

On my last day in Christchurch I jumped on a bus and took a 4 hour trip to Greymouth on the other side of the country. The slightly illogical reason for doing this was that the last time I'd come to New Zealand I had wanted to ride on the TranzAlpine train as it's supposed to be one of the world's great train journey and I had to get to the other end before I could get on it. This was a bit of a mad and slightly expensive day, but I did get to see some pretty cool scenery, none of which comes out very well through windows of buses or trains!
The next day I headed to Kaikoura which is a big nature place to go. Last time I was here I'd also wanted to swin with dolphins but the weather was really bad so it was cancelled. This time I tried to book up a few days before, only to be told it was full but I could go on the waiting list. I still hadn't heard from them when the bus set off. then we got stuck for 30mins when a truck lost its load ahead of us and they had to clear the road. At 11am I got a phone call saying there was a spot on the 12.30 trip but we were still a fair way from Kaikoura. Anyway luckily our driver (called Bagginz - I've also had Britney, Gollum, Wozza and Fitzy as bus drivers)floored it a bit and I got there right on time. I suited up and jumped on boat for 25mins then we spotted some dolphins so we jumped in. The dolphins swam right underneath at the start, then they swam off so we got in teh boat and found some more. This time they didn't hang around long and I realised that my mask leaked a bit which was annoying. We got to a third group and my making lots of wierd noises we managed to keep their attention for about 10 mins. It was very cool, they'd swim right upto you and then dart away or swim under you. I took some pictures with an underwater camera but I have no idea how they'll turn out as I wasn't really looking through the viewfinder cos they were so quick I just had to press the button and hope.
That night I tried and failed to eat a really large pizza but did get 2 free pints of Kilkenny as it was a draw in the rugby match on tv at half-time (strangely enough no-one believed the bloke who said this at first but it was true)! i still don't really understand but I wasn't complaining.
Today we left Kaikoura and took the ferry back to Wellington and the north island. Will be heading back upto Auckland soon and I'm debating over whether to put bakc my flight and stay a bit longer. Can't really afford it but don't want to leave...

Staying Off Dry Land

The weather has generally been pretty good down here, but that hasn't kept me dry. On my last day in Queenstown I went river surfing. Basically that means you get a modified boogie board and jump into a river and go down through rapids on it. Its very cool and lots of fun, but is quite tiring when you start. Nearly everyone got cramp in their legs on the first run (though that may be partially due to dehydration from the previous night's drinking) and my shoulder ached from quite early on. It was easier on the second run as you realised you didn't have to paddle so much and the rapids were more fun. They were grade 2 and 3 rapids, which would be pretty tame for white-water rafting, but plenty for me on my board.
Just to keep the adrenalin going I went rafting a couple of days later in Rangitata which has some grade 5 rapids which is the highest grade you can commercially raft. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but was still a good laugh and since we hadn't capsized we deliberately did at the end of the run.
Then I headed to Christchurch. On the way we stopped at some really cool lakes which are very icy blue coloured cos of the sediment in them called Lake Pukaki (which I think is the one in the picture) and Lake Tekapo.
In Christchurch I went to the International Antarctic Centre which is based next to the New Zealand, USA and Italy Antarctic HQs. Apparently Christchurch is the gateway to Antartica and about 70% of all people going to there leave from here. You got to ride in a vehicle called a Hagland that they use there which is great at going over crevices and floats in water, so we went over a fake crevice and floated in some water. They also have some penguins that have been rescued and lots of stuff on living in the Antarctic. They do a recreation of a snow storm, but there's not much snow, just a lot of wind, still it was fun to do.

Way Down South

Milford Sound is amazing. Really great scenery and well worth a visit. It's a bit of a drive from Queenstown, but the views are pretty good on the way there. You also get to go through a very steep one-way tunnel that on the way back some idiot had run the red light on so they got stuck in the middle of the tunnel with a load of buses squeezing past them going the other way. The ship we were on was pretty big and full of foreign tourists so you had the commentary in about 4 languages which was annoying as you didn't need it anyway, but it was still great to be out in the fjord.
That evening we headed south to a place called Tutapere (I think) which was a bit out in the sticks but we did some really good and cheap jet-boating there. The next morning was a visit to a sheep farm. We actually didn't do a lot there but got a lift in a sheep pen on the back of a quad bike and then got to shear (a bit of) a sheep which was really fun. Then we caught the ferry to Stewart Island which is mainly a national park and there aren't many roads there. Headed for a bit of a walk to a fake chain that is supposed to link the island to the mainland - from a maori legend. Then it rained. Luckily some of the people had been fishing and caught a lot. More luckily 2 of the guys I was sharing a cottage with were chefs, so we got a really good dinner that night. The next day we drove throught the Caitlins which is a really nice area. We saw some sea-lions on the beach and then at Curio Bay there were loads of dolphins playing in teh surf and doing somersaults which was really cool but didn't come out on photos very well!
We spent the night in Dunedin where you could upgrade to a twin room with en-suite and tv for only $5 more than a dorm room which lots of us did. We did a tour of Speight's Brewery which was fun and got us some beer to taste at the end. I'd have to recommend the Pale Ale and the Dark Ale!
The next day we headed back to Queenstown and went up in the gondola to what they call the luge. It's not really like the olympic sport, the thing has wheels and a brake and goes down a concrete track not ice, but you can go pretty fast on it and I managed to get airborne a few times and also take some corners with a wheel off the ground so that was really fun. Am just chilling out today, it was nice to have a lie-in for a change and get a few things sorted out.

Going a bit mad

I think the fresh air has gone to my head and I've decided to do a bit more of the extreme sports! I went to the Franz Josef Glacier and went climbing on it for a day. It's really fun. It's huge. In the group picture the glacier is actually 2.7km away, I though it was about 500m. We had to do a bit of climbing to get to the good spots, but then you could go through loads of really narrow gaps between the ice and go past crevaces which was great fun. You didn't actually feel in much danger, though there were a few spots when if we'd have slipped there would have at least been broken bones. There are a few of us who have been travelling together for a while - me, Mike, Craig and 3 dutchies (their name not mine) Marijke, Maryuline and Tjerek so all of us did the climb together which was cool. The next day we headed further south and got some good views of Mt Cook which is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Apparently you can only see it about 1 or 2 days out of 10 so we were lucky to have really good weather.
This morning for some reason I decided to do a skydive by Lake Wanaka. I really don't like heights nad am not a big fan of little planes, but strangely I thought it would be a good idea to go. In the end I was not that nervous when we went up in the plane but got a little worried when they opened the door at 4,000 feet for a guy to jump out. I don't think I could have jumped out of the plane by myself, but luckily I was strapped to a divemaster called Grant so he got us to the edge of the plane at 12,000 feet and having smiled for the camera we jumped out. It's really cool, I have a nice DVD of the freefall bit and the landing. The views up there were amazing as we were flying near mountains and lakes and it was a reallly clear day. I only wish I'd gone for the 15,000 feet jump, but it was another $90. ah well, it was still great and I might do another one when I get back to Oz. Am currently in Queenstown but am going to down south for a few days for some scenic views then come back here and go a bit more mad!

My new career as a stunt horse rider

Spent a last night in the north island in Wellington where a few of us who'd done the north island run together had a few more beers. Some of us were heading straight over the the South Island, a couple were staying an extra night in Wellington and then our driver Ricky had to head back upto Auckland for his next trip.
Took an early ferry across to the south island and then drove to the Abel Tasman National Park. The next day me Craig and Mike took a trip on a catamaran up the coast to Anchorage Beach and then walked back for 3 1/2 hours. The trip on the cat was cool as you got to see some great scenery and it was good to do the walk as I needed a bit of exercise to work off all the beer! We got to see some really good beaches on the way back as well and just made it back in time to go horse riding which was very interesting. The guide was this mad bloke that Craig thought might have been drunk, but actually I think was just wierd. We eventually got saddled up and headed down the beach where my horse would either try to scoot ahead of everyone or stop. Then it stopped in the middle of the beach and wouldn't move at all. Suddenly I felt it start to fall to the right as I realised it had decided to roll on the sand. Luckily may reactions are still pretty good and I managed to get my feet out of the stirrups and jump off just as it hit the sand and rolled over. Then I as got up to try and get the reins it rolled back towards me with hooves flailling in my direction so I had to jump back again to avoid being taken out. The horse then galloped off and the guy had to chase afetr it for about 10 minutes. Stangely enough I didn't get back on it, he did and I got on his horse. Then we went in the sea on the horses which was fun but a bit wet!
The next day we went for a bit less excitement but decided to make knives in a place called Barrytown. We had to hammer the steel and sand it all down which was fun and I now am the owner of a fairly decent knife.