New Zealand Holiday: Post 2

Hello everyone!
Sorry I haven't put up a post in a while. The last few weeks I have had a lot of big assignments due. Unfortunately those take priority over blog posts. Anyways, back to business. 

Adorable little puppy we met in Wellington. I thought I'd start off with a picture to make everyone smile.

This will be my second post about my amazing New Zealand trip. As I said, it was so jam packed full of fun things, I could not summarize it in one sitting. I last left off with us in Rotorua, so let's pick it right back up shall we?

Tongariro Crossing/Mordor

The view from the top of our little "hike."Mt. Ngauruhoe is in the upper left hand corner, though you can't see it very well.

Well we departed from Rotorua, scraping the side of the rental car in the process, and headed straight for Tongariro National Park. A little history about this park. It is world famous for its treacherous Tongariro Crossing, a 12 mile hike across volcanic landscape that takes six to eight hours to complete. Although it is a very difficult track, it is one of the most popular tramping tracks in New Zealand. It passes over the active volcano Mount Tongariro and through the eastern base of Mount Ngauruhoe. Most of you would recognize Mt. Ngauruhoe. This peak plays the part of Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. In fact, the Tongariro Crossing is the set for Mordor in LOTR. So, being the nerd that I am, I can officially say I have hiked through Mordor like Frodo and Sam!

Hiking up the crossing

Because none of us were really morning people, and because a recent volcanic eruption had blocked off the majority of the hike, we actually did not hike the entire crossing. But to make the hike more interesting, we went off the beaten path and made our own trek through the landscape. We actually ended up climbing up a steep slope to a patch of small cliffs at the top. Now if I was not young and reckless and was not enjoying the best trip of my life, I would say that this was probably not the best thing for the landscape, or us for that matter. But then again, we all need to have crazy stories to tell. The scenery was beautiful. From the top of our conquered rocks, we could see evidence of past eruptions and part of Mt Ngauruhoe (although the rest of it was covered in clouds). The hike took us about four hours. The rain surprised us on the way back, numbing our legs and hands. Thankfully we were all smart enough to wear plenty of layers on the upper half of our bodies at least.  We stayed the night in a nice little hostel 15 minutes down the road. Sure enough, our legs were quite sore the next morning.

From the top, left to right: Robby, Steph, Frank (another American we met on our travels), Emily and me. Melia is taking the picture. After reaching the top of the cliffs, we wanted a dramatic picture of us looking into the distance. Robby, of course is always one to rise to the occasion.

Wellington

View of Wellington

Our next stop was Wellington, located on the southern tip of the north island of NZ. Funny story: the morning of our long drive to Wellington, we received a call from our rental car company, asking us where we were. Apparently, we were supposed to return the car to the company in Wellington the previous day.  We drove just a little bit faster than usual to make it to Wellington by 5pm. With minutes to spare, we safely returned the car. Afterwards, with luggage slung over our shoulders, we wandered the streets of Wellington for a good hour, looking for our hostel.

Giant Squid we met at the museum.

Wellington is the New Zealand version of Portland, Oregon. It has the same look, atmosphere, weather and people. There is actually another Massey University campus in Wellington, and now I partially wish I had chosen to study at that location rather than Auckland. It is a wonderful city. The three days we were there, we were blessed with good weather. Wellington also has a wide variety of shops, cafes, bars and pubs; a perfect place for a small town girl like me to go exploring. We visited the Museum of New Zealand, a massive 6-story building that houses countless artifacts about Maori culture and New Zealand history, art exhibits  as well as other interesting things. The highlight of course was the up close encounter with a giant colossal squid, the largest and only complete specimen on display in the world. 

My first experience with a flaming shot. My mother was not very happy to learn about this picture ("You could have burned your face off Michael!") Don't worry Mom, I wont do it again. First and last $10 shot.

Our last night in Wellington, we enjoyed the night life. I had my first flaming shot, (my first and last) and went to my first actual dance club. The next morning, bright, early and slightly hungover, we jumped on the ferry and headed for the south island. 

 Picton/Marlborough

View from one of the wineries.

We jumped off the ferry onto the streets of Picton. We had officially made it to the South Island! Picton is an adorable little town located at the start of New Zealand wine country. It had the best hostel and bakery we had encountered on the trip. A few hours after the ferry ride, we headed to Marlborough, New Zealand's prime wine country, known mostly for its Sauvignon Blanc. Nearly 100 wineries are located in Marlborough. We decided to take a small wine tour.  I think we went to seven wineries and had the pleasure of tasting some fantastic wines. Our one mistake, not eating enough before the tour. The five of us were definitely buzzed on the way back to Picton.

Wine tasting I think is something you need to do a lot to get the hang of it. The wine tenets at each vineyard were going on and on about the aroma and the taste and how dry or spicy each wine was. I would just nod my head and pretend I knew what they were talking about. But in reality, in the back of my mind I was thinking what the hell are you talking about? They almost all taste the same!  And then you have to swirl the wine in the glass and smell it and look at the color before you even taste it. Why can't you just take a sip and and be done with it? Shows how much I know about wine. But it was still a great experience. I will learn as I get older.

Well that is it for this post. My next post will be completely devoted to Queenstown; the adventure capital of the world!

Until next time!