NZ - Dec. 14-15, 2013 - Thermal Wonderland, Hobbiton, Mini Golf, Last Day

As our incredible New Zealand trip came to a close, we still had a few pretty major things to see before our departure.  As usual, we were up at 6:30am for one last dip in the hot pools, packed up like a well-oiled machine, and we were out of the site by 8:45.  Just down the street was our first stop for the day: Thermal Wonderland.

Even for first thing in the morning, the place was PACKED because everyone wanted to see the Lady Knox geyser eruption.  We grabbed our front row seats by 9:30am and eagerly awaited the 10:15am eruption with hundreds of other people.  They had added some soap to the water so we could see the bubbling beginning of the eruption easier, then for about 30 seconds it shot 15m into the air.  It was tough to see through all of the steam, but the geologists among us loved it.  Me, meh, I could take it or leave it!

We spent the rest of the sweltering hot morning wandering around the rest of Thermal Wonderland.  Again, lots of neat things for the geologists, and lots of really different colours that you don't usually see anywhere else.

This picture doesn't capture how highlighter green that "water" really was.

The coolest part of the whole park was Champagne Pools.  It was beautiful, and surprisingly deep.  The steam was even a different colour!

Photo credit: Ryan P

Photo credit: Ryan P

The FUNNIEST thing happened in the parking lot as we were leaving.  The whole trip we had been seeing these Wicked camper vans everywhere, and Ryan R thought it would be great to get a picture of him posing with one with a Jackie Chan guy on it.  So he did...but as he was posing the girl who was renting the van showed up and got into the trunk.  Ryan had no idea she was there!  We all had a really good laugh over it, and we did get a fantastic picture.

Photo credit: Kat

We had one last picnic lunch in Kuirau Park (in the centre of Rotorura), then we packed up and did the 1 hour drive to Hobbiton.  We JUST made it at 4pm before they closed, and managed to get on the 4:20pm tour.  As luck would have it, we were all alone!  We got on a gigantic bus, and had a private tour of the beautiful grounds.

Our guide was a young guy named Taylor who actually played one of the baby hobbits in the movie.  He was really great, but despite his best efforts he couldn't keep the chinese tour group behind us from getting in our way.  He also showed us the last living sheep from the movie, which was really rare to see (though easy to spot, because it has a black head).  I was amazed how cool Hobbiton was, because I didn't really care about any of the movies.  I couldn't get over how beautiful and adorable the gardens were, and how they thought through every detail to make it look completely believable. 

Photo credit:Kat

Photo credit:Kat

Photo credit: Kat

Photo credit: Ryan P

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

The grand finale of the tour was an ale or ginger beer (for the driver...me) at the tavern.  They had really done a good job of it, especially because the inside wasn't in the movie so they just made it special for the tourists.  I really loved all of the notices they had up on the walls.  Ryan R especially loved the bathrooms and was super curious if the woman's bathroom was the same as the men's :)

Photo credit: Ryan R

And with that, our last day came to a close as we headed to Opal Hotsprings for one last night in our tents.  We cooked an easy dinner of soup and salad, drank more delicious wine, and Kat and Ryan brought out their Scotch as we played some final board games until 1am.  Turns out, Scotch, even when mixed with water, does NOT sit well with me!  Thank goodness it was our last night there, because that was way more drunk than I had been the entire trip.  

The next morning we were all a little tired, so we had a slow start and didn't get everything packed up until 11am.  Luckily it was a sunny morning so everything dried, and we cleaned off our tents as best we could for our international flights.

Back near the airport we had passed a super awesome pirate and dinosaur mini-putt, and since Ryan and I can never resist a good mini-putt that's how we killed some time before Kat and Ryan's flight.  (On our layover back to Australia Ryan and I went back there to play the dinosaur round, that's how fun it was!)

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

Our goodbyes weren't that sad since we were going to see Kat and Ryan again at New Years back in Canada, so we dropped them off to continue their trip on the South Island, and then we headed back to our original hotel to get all of our stuff organized.

Probably the saddest goodbye was to our trusty treasure chest that held our food the entire vacation.  Way more fun than a regular bin!

It was a bit complicated, because we ended up leaving all of our camping stuff at the hotel, flying to Canada, then coming back to the same hotel to pick it all up on our layover before heading back to Australia.  We killed more time by going to see the second Hobbit movie in theatres and wandering around the mall before a delicious dinner and a good night sleep.

We had a really awesome trip back to Canada for Christmas.  This time we mostly just saw our families, and then headed up to Sauble Beach for the annual New Years cottage party with the U of W geology crowd.  I did forget never to pull over onto the shoulder in the winter in Canada, so I managed to get the rental car stuck and had to have Jeremy pull me out of the ditch.  Ryan and I also picked parsnips under two feet of snow at my parent's house.  We had tons of fun in the snow since it was such a novelty for us again.

On our way home we were lucky to make it out of Canada because there was a huge snowstorm that closed the airport right after we left.  When we arrived in Australia after a horribly delayed flight we were exhausted and completely forgot to declare all of our camping stuff that we had picked up in New Zealand.  We got a really serious talking to by the security people, but luckily we got through without a fine.  Stupid mistake, since we're always really honest about what we declare, but at least they thoroughly cleaned our tent for us!

Well, those were some pretty epic posts that took me OVER TWO YEARS to finally write, but I'm so glad I did.  It was really fun to relive everything, and dream of our next adventure.

NZ - Dec. 13, 2013 - Zip Lining in Rotorua, Hell's Gate Mud Pools, Mud Bubbles

I think our theme today is jazz hands and mud...

Still sporting sunburns we plastered ourselves in healing coconut oil shortly after our 6:30am wakeup and our early morning dip in the thermal pools.  On the road by 8:45am to make sure we got to our zip lining tour on time!  Turns out we were super early, but we were very eager and excited.

Our 3 hour adventure started at 10am.  We filled out paperwork, got weighed, and suited up.  We had two hilarious guides, Shane and Richard, looking after our group of 10 people.  We got into the van and started to get to know each other, and Shane blurted out that he hunts pigs.  I don't know what came over me, but I burst out laughing because I had no idea that hunting pigs was a real thing.  Unfortunately for me, I paid for my little outburst for the rest of the trip by getting picked on.  Whoops!

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

When we arrived at the site we had a short walk through a beautiful virgin forest (one of the last in New Zealand, so it's also a conservation site) and then headed up for our first practice zipline.  It was short and low, but exciting since it was my first time ever doing it.  As we went on, each one got higher and longer, culminating in the longest one which was 220m.  They explained to us that when we got to the end we had to catch this rope stopper thing, but when I got to the end I managed to forget completely, even though the guide yelled at me to do it, and so I ended up reversing all the way back to the middle of the zipline!  Which of course meant that the guide had to pull me in on the longest of all the routes.  Another whoops!

Photo credit: Ryan R

The next one after that was very steep and we had to be careful to avoid a tree.

On the last one they told us we could try to flip upside down while we were going.  Kat and I managed to do it, but Ryan R got tangled and somehow got his leg stuck in his arm, and Ryan P looked more like a limp starfish when he tried.  Then we walked over a bridge and got to pose by hanging off the side a bit.  Super hard to keep your balance!

Overall it was a really fantastic trip with tons of highlights.  Highly recommended, and it was totally safe.  Well, as safe as flying through trees on a rope can be.

For lunch we thought we'd check out Sulphur Point.  I don't know why we though that was a good idea...as you might expect it was a smelly place that was kind of sketchy and full of seagulls.  The rest of the park was beautiful though in Rotorua.

Photo credit: Ryan R

Our first stop after lunch was to try and watch people zorbing (a notoriously NZ thing), but unfortunately there was no one to watch.  Our group was on the fence about actually doing it, but in the end we chickened out.

Next, and most notably, we went to Hell's Gate Mud Pools.  Unfortunately, this was one of the most memorable parts of the trip.  For $75/each we got to sit in brown water for 20 minutes with a bucket of mud.  Wasn't quite what we were expecting, but we made the most of it.

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R('s camera...)

Everything was going fine until we showered off and Kat messed up a contact lens.  We were sitting in the sulphur pools and she started to get really sore eyes, like when you cut an onion or get chlorine from a pool in them.  Except, MUCH worse.  Naturally she took out her contacts and we all decided to leave.  While we were changing it started happening to Ryan R as well, so I went to reception and they gave us some eye drops.  Her only advice to us was to get out of the area as quickly as possible because it was the sulphur in the air burning their eyes.  Not even thinking, I ALSO took out my contacts and that's when we realized that was the problem to begin with, so of course I died too.  While all three of us were crying like babies and couldn't open our eyes, Ryan P had to drive us all out of there.  What a gong show!

Kat and Ryan soon got better, but they had about 20 minutes on me, so by the time we reached our next destination, the mud bubbles, I still couldn't see but they were fine.  The mud pools were another free gem.  And also really supernatural...why was there bubbling mud??  So neat.  We were all really impressed how much free thermal stuff there was to do and see.

Photo credit: Ryan R

20 minutes later we were back at our campsite and got to cooking an epic taco salad for dinner.  We half-heartedly had another soak in the thermal pools, but really we just needed to clean off even more mud and re-apply the coconut oil to our burns.  We were definitely early to bed that night, and everyone had sore eyes from crying so much.  What a day!

NZ - Dec. 12, 2013 - Tokaanu Thermal Pools, Taupo, Spa Park Hot Springs, Waikite Valley Hot Pools

This wasn't our most photogenic day of the trip, but boy were we warm.  So many hot springs!  Today we mostly followed the guidance of our trusty NZ Frenzy book by Scott Cook, and he didn't let us down.

We started our day after a terrible sleep with soup and rice for breakfast, did a massive car clean-out and sort, then left the hotel by 9:45am.  As we were driving away we saw the side of a nearby mountain steaming like crazy, so we were happy to get out of there.

Photo credit: Ryan P

Tokaanu Thermal Pools was our first stop.  Normally you pay to go in, but we did a really cool nature walk behind the building for free.  There were bubbling bright blue pools that didn't seem to have a bottom, and there were even a few bubbling mud pools.  There was a Maori school group picnicking there but we explored just behind them and found the free hot pools we were looking for.  They were made by the locals to capture the hot water coming out of a nearby boiling geyser every few minutes.  Nothing fancy - just a cement tub with the water intake corked by a wooden stick and a sock.  It was way too hot for our Canadian blood, but really neat.  And honestly, it was our only "native" cultural experience of the whole trip pretty much.

Our next stop was Taupo, also known as Lake Taupo.  It was a really pretty lake, which was a nice change from ocean (probably also for the locals), but overall not that exciting.  We tested the water, stopped to use some WiFi, got groceries, then went on our way.

Photo credit: Kat

Our second hot springs of the day was Spa Park Hot Springs.  We had lunch on the grass then followed a short path to the river.  It wasn't hard to find because there were tons of people there, and someone had even brought a boom box, so it was like crashing a party.  This place was neat because the water in the river was cold, but there was a small waterfall from a thermal pool near by.  The closer you were to the waterfall the hotter the water was, so you could keep moving around to find your sweet spot.  It was hard to walk on the rocky bottom, but really fun people watching.

Photo credit: Ryan R

We ended our day at Waikite Valley Hot Pools campsite, which was a real gem so we ended up staying two nights.  So nice to not pack up the tent for a night!  It was also the best value yet, because for only $20/person we also got unlimited access to their beautiful thermal pools.  It was like camping at a spa, really.  They had a nice nature walk going through the area with dozens of hot pools, and the ones we could go in were more like hot tubs/swimming pools, which was a nice change from stubbing your toes on rocks or burning yourself.  



After a nice walk and dip we settled in for a super-delicious dinner: Thai mussels, gourmet salad, lamb medallions, and wine.  We hung out in the pavilion until the cockroaches started showing up and scared us away.  Plus we were pretty darn tired from all of the hot soaking all day!  The floors of our tents were warm, and lulled us into a glorious sleep.

Photo credit: Ryan R

NZ - Dec. 11, 2013 - Mount Doom/Mount Ngauruhoe Hike Day 2

All I can say is thank goodness we did a squat challenge the month before the trip!  All of us recovered really well from the first day of hiking, which was surprising and wonderful.  After a hot and broken sleep we were up at 6am to get started on day 2.  We were sore and tired so we packed up slowly, but we left the hut by 7:30am after eating a bunch of snacks for breakfast.  We left after a few people but we were ahead of most others.  

The start was brutal working out the sore muscles, but not bad once we got back in the zone.  The scenery was really beautiful, with clear views of Mount Doom (Mount Ngauruhoe) and Mount Ruapehu which still had some snow on it.  The terrain was like a desert with varying degrees of plants and rocks.

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

Eventually we went down through a gully, up through a forest (which made us all very hot and sweaty), then down the other side of the hill.  Our first destination was Waihohonu Hut (which we named Super Hut because it was massive and beautiful with fantastic facilities).  Our goal was to get there by 10:30am, and when we were cutting it close Ryan R actually ran there and got to it 4 minutes early.  The rest of us were not so energetic.

Photo credit: Kat

Photo credit: Kat

Photo credit: Ryan P

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

After our stop at the hut the scenery didn't change much, and nothing particularly interesting happened after that.  There were a lot of false ridges so we kept checking our map thinking we had made more progress than we actually had.  We had a 30 minute lunch break, then I hit my wall.  I had my first meltdown at about 1pm, then plodded along painfully until our next break.  After lunch took serious dedication with very sore feet.  About 2 hours before the end I picked up speed, left everyone behind, and just focused.  Unfortunately then we passed a sign for Taranaki falls which said we had an hour still to go, but I thought we were much closer so I had my second meltdown.  We could see the hotel at the end of the hike, but it never seemed to get much closer.

Finally we made it to the end, with three of us in pain, and Ryan R literally running circles around us.  It was like he was crazy on speed or something!  I have no idea where he got so much energy.

Photo credit: Ryan P

We got to the visitor centre just before it closed so we could check our hut reservation and buy some much needed aloe vera for our sunburns.  Then we went as fast as we could manage to the Discovery Lodge where we had treated ourselves to a hotel room instead of camping for the night.  I lost the rock, paper, scissors, so Ryan P and I got the pull-out couch, but it was worth it to get the hot shower first.  When we all felt human again we headed out to buy some food and wine, then have dinner out at a local pub.  The food was kind of mediocre, but at least we didn't have to cook!

Back at the hotel we drank more delicious New Zealand wine while we planned out the rest of our trip.  We just had lots of fun chatting and really enjoying our time together before finally passing out at 10:30pm, with hopes of still being able to walk the next day.

I have to say, this hike is one of the things I'm most proud of.  I was in the best shape of my life so far, walked most of it like a champ, and did something epic.  Definitely the highlight of New Zealand, hands down!