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Published: February 10th 2009
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Hey everyone its Jinx here to update you with what we have been doing. So below I have copied my diary and pasted it in. Now i have made it a little more readable for you all and added a little more detail in for you all, so here goes.
Day 6 - Saturday 7th Feb
We got up and was out of the hostel for 10am and went to the information centre to get some more post cards, we then drove to Taupo (about 2 hours drive) where we brought and ate some lunch and then drove to Huka falls. The falls had some very blue and fast flowing water which comes from lake Taupo and the river is used for 15% of new Zealand’s power. After lunch we continued driving to a small town called Oakune (another 2 hour drive), stopping at a couple of places for scenic view points and some picture taking. The hostel was ok, more of a do it your self YHA hostel we get in the UK, not quite as good as the rest we have stayed in, but it was fine. When we arrived we popped to the shop to buy
some food for dinner; we decided on pasta. We played some UNO with a Kiwi guy called Richard who had done a massive 150KM bike ride that day and was heading back to Auckland the next day. After katie won 2 games of UNO we made our lunch for the next day because we were going to do the Tongriro crossing, which meant we had to get up early. I managed to read another paper on the laptop before i went to sleep.
Day 7 - Sunday 8th Feb
We had to get up early (7:30am) to get the bus to the start of the Tongriro crossing. There was low cloud in the morning which meant no views were to be had until we started going up the side of the volcano. The Tongriro crossing is a 19KM walk starting at 1100m climbing up to 1850m and then back down to 800m. The walk passes between two volcano’s of which one is at 2200m. I tried to climb the big volcano but i only managed to get about 1 third of the way up because it was extremely hard going. The side of the volcano was shale and
dirt, at a 45 degree angle or more, meaning that every time you took a step forward you moved back 2 steps. We were only walking in trainers, which for most of the walk was fine but for the steep volcano they did not help as i was unable to dig my toes into the soft shale. So i decided that the amount of effort needed to get up to the top was disproportional to the gain of taking a few photos (Maybe next time). The rest of the walk was very good, there was one steep bit coming down from the very top of red crater (the highest point), which Izzy found a little difficult but other wise the walk was fine. I thought the walk was going to be very hot as the weather forcast for the surrounding area was about 30 degrees C, but because of the height it was not too bad, although there was not a cloud in the sky all day (mainly because they were below us all day).
On a side note one very bit of sad news, is we (me) lost a man on our little walk. During my little attempt
up the volcano JJ my beloved chicken companion decided to leave without so much as a good bye. So as you can probabley imagine i went back to look when i noticed but i could not be bothered to walk back up the volcano to do a proper seach for him. So we say far well to our dear friend JJ the rubber chicken.
We had to wait about half hour for the bus back to the hostel with no water as we had drank it all so we decided to but lots of liquids from the shop when we got back. We went to the shop and brought pizza, ice cream and liquid in the form of orange juice and lemonade (i brought some beer, yum yum). We cooked dinner and watched some tv.
Day 8 - Monday 9th Feb
We got up around 9am and packed as we had to be out by 10am. We had breakfast and drove for a couple of hours to a beach town called Foxton beach where we had lunch, we also brought an ice cream. The beach was massive (long not wide) and if you had a registered car
and license you could drive on the beach. We continued driving south towards wellington for another hour and half to a town outside wellington called Plimmerton. The hostel is very nice, more like a big house. It is owned by an English lady and her husband (a Kiwi), we have a room for the 3 of us all single beds no bunk beds. We unpacked the car and drove straight in to wellington and walked around for a few hours. Wellington is a compacted little city but quite nice, split up in to districts (entertainment, shopping and business). We drove back to Plimmerton because we were all very hungry and got fish and chips. After food we planned the next 2 weeks of the south island trip in our room as people were watching a film in the lounge (which is massive and faces out to the sea which is across the road). Tomorrow we go back to wellington.
Day 9 - Tuesday 10th Feb
Got up and got some breakfast. Katie did a massive amount of booking on the phone to book the hostels for the next 4 nights, and the kayaking trip we will be doing
in a couple of days. The weather is not too good, very cloudy and wet, the worst day we have had, but that’s ok because we planned to spend most of the day in the national museum. The museum was very good; it contained many exhibits from the geology of New Zealand such as the volcano’s to dinosaurs and simulation rides which took us on a tour under water to a volcano and another on a random assortment of things. The museum was free but we paid for the simulation rides, but the guy gave us all student concessions even thou katie and Izzy are not students. We spent about 6 hours in the museum altogether with lunch. After we walked through the city towards the cable car (a track cable car) stopping off to buy some honey and a towel. At the top of the cable car was a good but limited view of the city a botanical gardens and some old observatories. We had a walk around and then headed back down the cable car into the city to get some food as everyone one was once again very hungry (it’s all the walking). We had Wagamama’s for
Tongariro Crossing
- if you follow the path back along the flat you see where you descend the scree slope! diner (yum yum in my tum). After dinner we headed up to the view point on Mt Victoria, unfortunately as we were eating the clouds came in again and we could see NOTHING from the top other than some headlights from the main street in the city. So we took some photos of us in the cloud then head back down the steep hill and out the city to the hostel. We spent the evening in the room again (not sure why it just happened) and i did the video for the elections back in Southampton on Thursday.
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