Northlands

Ah the North Country, fairly warm all year round, and beaches minutes away.

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Well, it's been some time, most of you know that I've come home already, and essentially neglected the end of my blog experience (mostly because traveling is reeaallly hectic and then I had told all of you the stories when I got back). But if you've just discovered this, I'll be sure to finish updating those old posts, that are still in "draft" stage. I've got everything written in an actual diary, just need to type it up!
~Sarah

Leigh

So after I parted from Brian and Naomi, I took the Naked Bus out to Warkworth, the closest stop to Leigh and where my flatmate Maia lives. Her mum picked me up and we chatted the whole way out to their house just outside of Leigh.

I think visiting people at their homes has been my favorite part of traveling; there's just something to be said about staying with a family that gives you the full cultural effect or what not. Plus Maia's family is awesome! So in Maia's family it's her, her mom, three younger brothers and her step dad. Her brothers are quite a bit younger (between a couple months and 4) so it was fun to play with little kids after not really seeing any for a while. Plus little kids with accents are ridiculously cute. Luke, the oldest, was such a flirt! Mace (second youngest) was just a cute little two year-old, and then the littlest baby, whom they just call peanut, is...well...a peanut!

Rotarua

Well, Tongariro was tons of fun; a plethora of fun, but it was time to move on.  The next stop for our little band was to Rotarua, a city built on hot springs and tourism. We left for Rotarua after we'd done our final walk in Tongariro, but since Rotarua was only about an hour and a half away we took our time in getting there. We took a few little detours along the way. The first was lunch, of course, in Taupo. Taupo sits on the edge of the lake of the same name: it's the largest lake in New Zealand. It was once the site of the largest volcano in New Zealand. Something like a 2000 years ago it exploded and the lake formed in the crater. The explosion was so big that its effects were noted as far away as China and Rome, crazy eh? Anyway, it was kind of weird to be on the other side of the lake because we could see the volcano we'd climbed up the day before, plus it was about 10 degrees warmer. Funny how changing altitude will do that.

After lunch we stopped at some incredible waterfalls. You could hear them as soon as you stepped out of the car in the carpark. It was just the way that the land had formed, but this particular part of the Waikato River flows faster, with a greater volume of water per meter than any other part. It's not a huge drop (only 11meters) but it's beautiful to see. The water's this spectacular blue turquoise color caused by the increased air in the water reflecting blue light. The waterfalls are so powerful that trout can't swim up the waterfalls to get to their breeding grounds. It was pretty cool.

After we got to Rotarua and checked in to our motel we decided it was time to explore. There was a playground on the map on the edge of the lake that was marked "Volcano Playground" which was a lie that drew us in--no volcanoes there! Since our family is made up of a bunch of big kids, though, we decided to play a little, and the hand jousting began. Brian beat us all. Cheater.

After jousting we went to explore around the lake's edge but soon had to move away. The sulfuric smell was overpowering. I later asked one of my kiwis friends who's from Rotarua how she can live there, she said that she technically lives outside of town, but after a while you can't really smell it. We wandered more closely to our motel, as it was getting dark already, but not before we'd found the city gardens. Most of the flowers were dying out, but there were still a few roses blooming! The extra cool thing about Rotarua being on hot springs is that all of the motel pools are naturally heated, so we that night we just floated around in the pool staring up at the stars. The constellations in the southern hemisphere are different to ours, but I think I spotted one: scoripus, my zodiac sign. Well, and of course the southern cross.

The next day was my last with Brian and Naomi, I was moving on north to go visit one of my flatmates at her home, so we thought we'd get up early to go for a walk. We got up too early I guess because the place we wanted to go for a walk and see some hot springs was actually closed. We kept driving, and eventually got semi-stuck in a massive amount of fog. We were still trying to find a walk, but eventually we gave up and wandered back to Rotarua. In stead of going for a walk we ended up in the local museum/art gallery. It was alright, the coolest pat of the galleries was the exhibit they had up of all these digital artists that work/ed at WETA workshops. There were little bios that listed which movies and departments they'd worked at, and since I'm a nerd, I even recognized some of the names from the LOTR additional features. Most of the drawings were done in digital formats, but a couple were actually watercolor or oil paints. All of the art was of different creatures and strange fantasy worlds: my kind of stuff.

The rest of the museum was about the local history of Rotarua and the volcanic activity there. The building used to be an old bathhouse in the early part of the 20th century, so there were several exhibits dedicated to that. You could go up to the roof and look out over the city as well, which was pretty cool.

After exploring a couple more exhibits it was time to head back for lunch and my departure. It was a once in a life time adventure to wander around a foreign country with my brother and sister-in-law, it led to some great stories and lots of fun. Perhaps one day we can do it again with the whole family (there's a scary thought--not sure if the rest of the world is ready for ALL the family).

One Does Not Simply Walking into--wait a second...

...apparently one DOES simply walk into Mordor! Sorry Sean Bean and meme culture--you were wrong.  This place that we've seen via the LOTR series called Mordor was filmed on the slopes of Mt. Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park. Since we are rather nerdy in my family, it was on the list of places to go and explore for Brian, Naomi and I.

Not only is Mount Ruapehu known for the LOTR, but it also has one of the most beautiful full day hikes in New Zealand. The Tongariro crossing is a 8-12 hour hike that takes you up by the craters of one of the volcanoes and passes all sorts of interesting volcanic formations, including sulfur lakes. Since it was the winter season (and had snowed the day before) the conditions for the crossing weren't too great for us so we decided to do a different, but just as grueling and cool, day hike. Let me back up for a minute, though, any share a quick couple of pictures from the travel day we had to get there.  From Wellington it's about a 6hr drive to Whakapapa (pronounced Fahka-papa) at the foot of the mountains. On the way out of Wellington there's another little LOTR stop, so we stopped there:

 Look familiar? It's Rivendale! This is the spots where they built small parts of the sets to film parts of the send off scenes and Frodo's recovery. Very ethereal looking; it's located in Kaitoke National Park, in the Wairapa. It's a neat little park, with more tramping trails than we had time to explore. We did do an hour loop track that took us over a reeeaalllly long swing bridge. It was fairly wobbly, and I think Brian was a bit nervous crossing: he let Naomi and I get most of the way across before he went. The forest was mostly rainforest and tons of huge crazy trees. It was a fun side trip as we traveled.

When we finally got to Whakapapa it was dark out, so we couldn't see anything out our window. We got up early for our walk though, and when we stepped out onto the deck the view was spectacular! We were pretty high up already, and all spread out in front of us was just flat plains, and then there was this huge volcano, with other cones in the distance.

It was really cool, and everything was covered in ice. We almost slipped down the driveway of the hotel because the whole road was iced over. I think it was so cold because a) it was winter, b) we were at a higher altitude, and c) the sun was just coming up, so everything was still mostly in shadow.

The sun did eventually make its way beyond the volcano and warmed us up a bit. It clear out some of the clouds too and we could see Mt. Ruapehu! Ruapehu is a massive volcano that's (supposedly) inactive. On its slopes are the North Island's premiere ski fields. It was a beautiful sight to look up anywhere we went and go 'mountian!' I think every where should have a mountain. It's only fair.

Typical New Zealand path, it wouldn't be complete without a stream crossing! Luckily for us, it was mostly frozen over.









We had some fun taking silly pictures. We were the only ones on the path for most of the time, it wasn't until we had already started back that we started seeing people, so it was all timer shots for us.


The ultimate goal of this tramp was to get up to about 1500m elevation and see the Tama lakes, which are on the side of the volcanoes.

It was a beautiful, albeit cold, view. The wind got really strong up that high, and the higher you went the more it looked like Mordor. All the vegetation died away until you were just climbing up this almost snow like dirt. It was really soft and felt like walking through snow. That part of the trek was really hard because you were nearing the top, and the elevation was starting to get to you, coupled with the cold and the wind. It didn't help that the uphill was really hard. Imagine you're trying to walk up Elver hill in about 8in of snow, in the middle of a blizzard. It was kind of like that.

The lakes were really beautiful though. Worth the hike, I think. The other cool thing was that once you got up to the top it was just endless valleys laid out before you. And when you looked down the path you came up, you could see down both ridges. One side was in the sun and actually had some scrub grasses on it, while the other was in shadow and was covered in this kind of ice/snow layer. Beautiful. I think, in the picture below, you should be able to see some people walking up the ridge. They were the first people we saw of the day, way out on the ridge in a bright red jacket. They'd be tiny in the picture so if you can't see them, no worries, just an idea of how spread out everything is.

This was the ice crystals that had formed in everyone's shoe prints. Somehow they'd frozen in the dirt so it puffed it out, and when you stepped it broke them. They looked really cool.

So this is a volcano, right? What's the worst thing that could happen while hiking on the mountain? It could explode. What's the very last thing you want to hear while you're hiking away from the mountain? Why a giant boom and then a shake. We were well off the upper heights when it happened. It was like we were all rabbits that had heard a noise and froze for a second to listen, panic, and then we started running up the path to the next rise, because that's what all the warnings in the hotel had said in case of an eruption. It was also to see it if had actually gone off, because we were in a valley at the time and couldn't see the volcanoes. As we were reaching the hill there was another boom and shake, and we ran faster. I was secretly thinking, 'no way, no way, how cool would that be? Insane. This can't actually be happening!' some of you may know this, but when I was in about 3rd or 4th grade I was obsessed with the idea of becoming a vulcanologist (someone who studied volcanoes--not Vulcans).  Anyway, obviously, when we got to the crest of the hill and looked back nothing had gone off, to my slight disappointment. We thought about it for a while, and later ran into someone on the path who confirmed our theory, that they must've been dynamiting something up on Ruapehu because that's direction the noise had come from. The people we met on the path next told us that they often will blast on the mountain to prevent avalanches. It made sense since the ski fields were scheduled to open the next week. Oh well, that's the fun almost volcano-explosion story.

 

On the way back, we looped on a different path to stop and see a waterfall. By this time we were all pretty exhausted (and it was only like 1:30!) so the sillies started to come out: 

There was pretty incredible sunset later that night:

The next morning, after spending a nice night relaxing in the hotel's sauna and spa, we got up for another early hike before check out and moving on. This one was out to the Silica Falls. It was another cold morning with more ice crystals on the path:














There was a river that followed along the path, and actually had flooded parts of it so that when we walked on it we had to be really careful because it was all ice, and uphill! There was a cool part where the grass had hung over the stream and had frozen:

We got to the falls just as the sun was coming over the hills, so they were extra spectacular. The mineral deposits from the volcanic springs runs in the water and turns the rocks different colors, depending on how fast the water flows over them. In this one area there were red, white, and green sections of rock: it was very cool.

Then of course there was the mountain. I am going to photoshop that into every picture I take: mountains are AWESOME.

On the way back to the hotel to check out we walked along the road for part of it. Since it was still early, the roadside was covered in sheets of ice and as we walked along and the hills warmed up it would all slide down. It was so silent that you could hear it all around. It was a really cool natural thing. I love nature. It's awesome.

And that was Tongariro. I definitely recommend it, go and walk around! I would've loved to have stayed for a couple more days and done more walks, I just couldn't get sick of the scenery.

Just Went to see a Show

Oh you know, I just went to see this little show starring Sir Ian McKellen, and who happens to be there? Why practically the whole Hobbit cast. No big deal. There was this little guy there with a comfy flannel shirt and jacket on, kind of like my dad would wear, but oh wait, he's just one of the most influential directors on the planet. And I got to meet him. Yes ladies and gentlemen: I just met Sir Peter Jackson. Oh. My. Freaking. God. I'm still in shock and can hardly believe it--I mean this is the man who's movies inspired me to want to be an actor for real and helped me make my decision to study abroad in New Zealand. I made jokes with people about running into him and everyone else while I was here BUT IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Wow. I can't even begin to describe my feelings, hopefully the choppy syntax and bad grammar are getting it across for me. I guess I should start at the beginning...