Last Post from New Zealand!

Well it is our last night in New Zealand, we leave tomorrow morning for Sydney. On one hand, I am sad to leave, New Zealand has been very good to us in terms of exciting places, nice people, beautiful sights and a lot of fun. On the other hand I look forward to continuing our journey, and getting to places that are not so hard on my wallet. Anyway I will try to do this post in correct chronological order, from where I left off the last one. We left Wellington driving north, and made it to Tongariro national park. The park contains three volcanoes, and I know at least two of them are active. One of the volcanoes, Mt. Ngauruhoe, is perfectly conical and was used as Mt. Doom in the lord of the rings trilogy. Our plan was to camp at the park and then to climb the mountain and drop the ring into the fires of mordor from which it was created. The first part of our plan went well, and we found a nice place to camp. When the next day came around and we woke up at 6 am to begin our climb, we saw that it was raining. This was not a complete surprise because rain was forecast, but once I realized that the forecast was correct I became worried because they had also forecast gale force winds on Mt. Doom. So when we got to the parking lot of the trail head and could barely see the mountain, let alone the top, my decision to not attempt the summit was fairly easy. The picture I have up is from the day before, but it shows that the top of the mountain is literally in the clouds. I have a lot of respect for Nick and Kevin who tried to climb anyway and had a great adventure. Read about it on Nick's Blog! Sorry the web address is too obnoxiously long for me to type here, if you need it you can scroll down to the end of the dusky post. Greg and I had a different sort of adventure, we ate breakfast in a nice cafe and read the newspaper. How is that an adventure you ask? Breakfast is the most dangerous meal of the day, according to various sources. So after barely escaping breakfast we picked up Nick and Kevin and drove north. We did not want to go all the way to Auckland, so we impulsively turned to the coastal town of Raglan. We drove along the beach for a while, and ended up on a tiny gravel road, snaking our way through the hills. It reminded me at times of both the coast of northern California (like Point Reyes) and Costa Rica. Luckily, the lonely planet informed us that at the end of this road was a motor park. That is where we set up camp. It was amazing because it was the only thing for miles. The next day we got up early and drove into Auckland. We went to the car rental place and returned the car, only two days late. We got a room at the same hostel we stayed at when we flew into Auckland and we began to prepare for the rugby game, by buying a bottle of whiskey. On the way to the stadium we stopped for sake bombs, but still made it a little bit early. The game itself was a lot of fun. The Auckland Blues took on the Chiefs. We were rooting for the Blues because we figured it was better to root for the home team, but there were plenty of fans from both sides because the town the chiefs are from is only an hour and a half away. It was amazing rugby, and an exciting game, with plenty of tries, tackles and lead changes. The Blues won so we were happy. It was especially interesting because they have introduced some rule changes to try and speed up the game, so we had to try and pick up on those. I could really get used to watching professional rugby instead of professional football. Today I spent the day doing laundry, getting my haircut, using up my internet time, and generally getting ready to leave the country. Australia here I come! I imagine I will have similar access as I have had, so I will probably do at least one or two posts next week. Hope all is well with all! -- Mark