Rotorua, a self-described Thermal Wonderland!

It turned out that our Kiwi buddies Dave and Simon were planning on being down in Rotorua around the same time we'd be passing through. There's an army style obstacle course of 6km in an open competetion, apptly named the "Tough Guy Competition." Everyone seemed to have a great time, no one taking it too seriously, and was more of an excuse for a weekend away and a large night out. We started off the everning with some drinking games before heading out to the bar.



Craig and T here are also familiar with the diverse range of Zoolander poses. Later that night I also found out Craig also is familiar with how to puke on the person standing right next to you after doing a tequila shot.


Simon and me. Dave pulled out having a work function on friday, and no good excuse for not making it down saturday. A beligerant phone message let him know how I felt about it.


14 Kiwis, 3 bars, countless beverages...a good night. Earlier that day we have checked out the "Thermal Wonderland," which is a whole bunch of rank smelling hot mud pools. They also have a gyser that shots off once a day.

Mt Maunganui

Post Tongariro we headed further west to Waitomo, home of the glow worm caves. The tour takes through a large cave down to an underground river. You hop on a small boat and are towed further into the cave where the glow worms are doing there thing. With thousands of them lighting up the roof of the cave it's pretty cool. They don't allow photos. We then headed back east towards Rotorua to meet up with some fellas there for the weekend. We took the scenic route, by accident.
Along the way we stopped at Mt Maunganui for a little hike and view. Nothing like a good hike and a view.
On the side of this mountain is grass. And where there's grass, there's sheep.
On Rotorua it was.

Tongariro National Park

The day out of Waikaremoana turned into a nice one, especially as we were passing just north of Tongariro. So we swung back there in hopes of the hiking on a nice day. We didn't have time that day but the next day was supposed to be a beauty as well so we stuck around. 3 volcanoes find home in Tongariro National Park: Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. That's Tongariro on the left, and the perfect cone of Ngauruhoe on the right. Ruapehu is a little further right and our hike took us between the last two.
Next day we awoke and the day was indeed gorgeous so we jumped on the hike. As we stormed up the trail, overjoyed to be back on a hike worthy of our prowess, nothing could stop us. Except the risk of a nasty burn; we lathered up and pushed on. damn it we're hard.. rock hard.
Never having been on a snow hike it was pretty cool. Once again, pun not intended, I'm sorry these just happen.
This one's Ruapehu. I hope you like it.
Our destination was lower Tuma lake. it's in this crater.
OK these pics are gonna be a little out of order because the computer won't let me cut and paste them. Paul spent hours re-loading pics in other postings for just this problem. I'm not doing the same, mostly to spite him.
The majority of the trail had been unbroken in the fresh snow. Luckily it was freezing the night before providing a firm top layer of snow. Unfortunately it wasn't always enough to hold one's weight and any step could push through the top, sinking in up to your hip. It made for some humorous hiking. Naturally any time we'd tout ourselves for taking a good short-cut, or mention how this was quicker than following the winding trail in summer, the snow would give and our feet would start breaking through.
About an hour into the hike was Taranaki waterfalls. Did we take a picture? OF COURSE we took a picture!
This is back at Lower Tuma lake, our turnaround point and lunch stop.

Lake Waikeremoana

After the franz joseph the plan was to make it up to the north end of the south island and do the Abel Tasman, which is a hike along the coast line, another out and back. After much research and price analysis we decided we wanted to kayak out and hike back. Then after further research into the weather we decided to scrap the whole thing and head to the north island where the weather system was hitting a little less.

We stopped at Tongariro National Park along the way but once again the weather sent us packing with overcast clouds preventing any chance of a view. So on to lake Waikaremoana in hopes of renting a canoe, cuz it's easier than hiking, and well were just lazy. The local canoe renter's last known address was in this small town beside a small lake just beside Waikaremoana.

The lake was infested with black swans.
After interrogating half the townspeople and staking out the canoe renter's house we finally found her. We succeeded in pretending to be nice people and she gave us the rental severly below cost and we were off. Unfortunately when making our decision to canoe based on laziness we forgot to account for wind and the resulting waves. Also, this lake had an adorable little habit of twisting the wind around corners to give us a headwind in every direction.
We finally got to the bay with the hut we were looking for. Some sub-par map reading on my part had us scouring the wrong hillside looking for the hut for about an hour. At one point, Paul even asked what that building was across the bay. I replied that it must be someone's private cottage, who chose metal siding for some reason. Much later, wetter and with slight bitterness we determined this was the hut we were looking for. Once again, the Department of Conservation had outdone themselves.
Day 2. Instead of packing up and moving on to the next hut as intended, our drained motivation led us to opt out for a day paddle out and back to some waterfalls.
Coming around a corner we encountered more wind reminiscent of the previous day. Needless to say we turned back.
Here's paul washing his hair. We like rough it, but not with dirty hair.
A break in the rain and wind in the afternoon prompted a round of frolf.
Here's my drive over the water hazard on the 8th hole. My throw made a characteristic slice hard to the right, sending it deep into the feskew and never to be found.
later on paul took a paddle up the adjacent creek. this gave us a nice 20 minutes apart. I missed him.
Full moon.
Paul playing with the settings on his camera. These candles burned for an amazingly long time, some say they could last 8 whole nights... but probly not.
Away from the DVD player of the van we needed something else to pass the time in the evenings. Paul taught me canasta. We took on Agnes and Ethel for the New Zealand championship.Day 3: Paul went for a day hike, I entertained myself in the hut as cabin fever slowly set in. Paul experimenting with the camera.
The hut from afar.
Day 4. It was time to make our way out. Because I feel the need to caption every picture - this is swan.
We camped by the lake in the van again that night, with intentions of hiking that bluff in the background for a view over the lake.
oh yeah, sometime around franz joseph the sliding door on the van stopped opening from the inside. Seeing as the lock of that handle had had mechanical problems, we assumed the handle had just crapped out. However the door could still be opened from the outside. You figuring this one out yet? I hope so, but if not, we didn't either. After struggling a few times with reaching an arm out the passenger door to grab the outside handle, paul decided to tackle this problem. He ended up constructing this fine little mechanism (seen below) allowing us to pull the rope inside the van, thus releasing the handle on the outside.
We used this until we returned the van. Upon informing the rental guy of the mechanical error with the door, he went to inspect. Turns out the child lock was on. Waterloo Engineering: complex solutions to simple problems.

View of the lake that night.

The next morning brought fog and snow thus deterring us from the bluff hike. We headed out back west towards Waitomo with glow worm caves, unsure of where we'd kill some time on the way.

Franz Joseph Glacier

Mark and I were both keen to do a glacier trek based on people we'd talked to and pictures we'd seen. Not knowing when we were arriving we didn't book anything ahead of time. We awoke to a beautiful clear day, absolutely perfect for a hike on a glacier, and rushed over to the office to see if we could get out on a tour that day. Unfortunately there was only 1 spot left of the full day tour, so we rocked off for it, with the other one going on the 3/4 day tour. Mark won, and the lady advised him he'd better be quick, because the bus was leaving soon. After he rushed to the car, got some food and changed, he ran back to find out the bus left without him. Ridiculous. So in the end, we decided to roll the dice with the weather and booked in for the full day the next day. With some time on our hands, we checked out a couple sites close by.
We've run out of stuff to talk about, so Mark just meditates now...


Luckily the weather cooperated with us, and we heading out in the sunshine the next morning. Now Mark, T and I have found over the course of this trip that we all dispise guided tours, especially when the groups are really big. We much prefer to be able to go at our own pace, and have the freedom to do as we please. In this case, for obvious reasons, we had no choice. As we met up at the base of the glacier, our worste fears were realized...the group was huge.

Luckily they split the 5 odd people into 5 groups, each with 1 guide, with each group going at different speeds depending how keen people were. We went in the first group, so it was actually not bad at all. Our guide and the group were all good fun. That's our guide Mike up ahead. This guy get's free heli rides up to the top of the glacier through the company on his days off and does backcountry ski trips. At the top of the glacier, they average 40m (yes..fourty meters!!) of snow a year. Needless to say, it's bottomless powder all the time.


The caves and crevaces on the glacier are contantly changing at it advances and melts, so it's total luck of the draw what you'll get into on any given day. We seemed to get pretty lucky, with a new crevace and a new cave both opening up the day we went.


Some of them were pretty tight...

Lunch time...



After lunch, as we got further up the glacier, the ice became less dirty and a deeper blue. And we finally got into some caves. Very cool (no pun intended).

This was one of the new caves, which was about 2 feet wide and high. I went through first, which was cool, but was regretable because we didn't get any pictures of us inside the cave.


So just pretend this is us...


And time for one more cave on the way out.

All in all a really fun experience. Pricey, but I reckon worth it.