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Published: January 24th 2006
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Hot Water Beach
Digging my hot tub. Hello all. Right now we're in the city of Taupo. We just got back from a 3 day hike in Tongariro National Park which was amazing. And hard. To lighten our packs, we left our tents at the hostel and stayed in the huts along the way that are maintained by the DOC. They are pretty well maintained and clean, but the facilities are minimal. For example, they have a couple gas burners but no pots or pans or anything. There are no showers, but 2 toilets, but no toilet paper. There is running water, but it comes from a big ass vat of rainwater and technically you're supposed to boil it for 3 minutes before drinking or cooking with it. There are beds, but they're basically a bunch of pads next to each other on wooden boards. Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with a couple dozen sweaty hikers after a long day. But it's great fun to finally show up at the hut, drop your 40 pound pack, change your clothes, and start hanging out. A few people keep to themselves, but mainly everyone is pretty chill. Dinnertime brings out lots of pasta and pre-packaged
Pinnacles hike
Starting off on the uphill hike to the Pinnacles hut with 35 pound packs. freeze dried meals (which are surprisingly good). However, I learned not to bring instant macaroni and cheese anymore because one of the pouches exploded in my pack and I got powdered cheese all over everything. Some people bring little camper stoves with their own fuel. We met one couple from California who had a real nice little stove contraption but couldn't figure out how to start it. It eventually lit, but they were going through match after match, and seemed like they might give up. The funny thing is that they were astrophysicists.
Anyway, we saw some incredible scenery and night skies, and spent a few quality days relaxing in the middle of nowhere. We went on one other overnight hike which was right after my last blog entry, but that time we were camping. It was called the Pinnacles hike, on the Coromandel Peninsula. I was totally unprepared for it, my pack was way too heavy. It turned out to be 3 hours of mostly straight uphill climbing on steps carved in the stone. I might have left the 6-pack behind if I'd known that. Well, maybe not. It's amazing that no matter how long or steep the
Don't look down
Here's Bryan crossing one of several suspension bridges. hike is, you always see people breaking out heavy bottles of liquor at night. Priorities, baby.
After that, we spent a couple pretty uneventful nights in the somewhat backwards towns of Thames and Coromandel. Thames is an old gold mining town and the place we stayed was built in 1860. It looked straight out of the wild west, like it was probably a brothel for most of its existence. Oh, and also I bought a cheap but good-sounding acoustic guitar there, so I'm real happy to be able to play again. Coromandel is another really small town, and it was pretty much just a stopoff before we continued north on the peninsula.
The next day we drove on many miles of unpaved gravel road and camped out in Fletcher's Bay. We were especially excited for this because they allow campfires. But you have to find your own wood. So some lady lent us her axe and said go have fun. Man, those trees never stood a chance. We made a king size fire that night.
From there, we spent one night in Whitianga on our way to two popular tourist attractions nearby - Cathedral Cove and Hot
Legs of jello
This is about where we stopped feeling so tough. Water Beach. Whitianga itself is just a small beach town. We were there on a Sunday so not much was open, but we did find a bar that had all-you-can-eat BBQ plus one beer for $10 (NZD). Then later on we went to an Irish sports bar that had a horse racing bookie there, so we played the ponies for a bit. I didn't win anything. We watched some cricket on TV there and spent a while trying to figure out how the hell you play that game. There's obviously no baseball or football here, and not even too much soccer. It's all cricket and especially rugby. The New Zealand rugby team is called the All Blacks. I was like, imagine if there was an NBA team in the US called that. Then I found out that the basketball team here is called the Tall Blacks. Hahaha. It's just because of the color of their uniforms, but still pretty funny.
From there we headed to Cathedral Cove which is basically a white sand beach with a huge limestone cove, and was absolutely beautiful. We spent the morning there then headed to Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is a
section of beach with some hot springs underneath the sand. So you basically go there, rent a shovel, and dig your own hot tub. Only problem is that in some sections the water is almost boiling hot. You gotta find a spot with the right temperature. I learned the hard way.. I thought I had 3rd degree burns on my foot from testing out the water in one place. Plus it was real crowded. But fun nevertheless.
After leaving Hot Water Beach and the Coromandel Peninsula, we drove a solid 4 hours south to Rotorua, a city known for being another hotbed of geothermal activity. The whole town smells like sulfur. The hostel we picked was a really fun scene, right next to a place called the Lava Bar. It was good to be social again after about a week of staying low key. The first night there was insane, long story short Dave got kicked out of the hostel at about 3am. Seriously, what's the point of closing an outdoor pool anyway? But I was really impressed at how beautiful the city was. It was a great place to just walk around for a while. I went over
Superstar hiker Dave
Waiting for us to catch up by Lake Rotorua and saw some black swans, stumbled upon the Government Gardens, and also found a Pizza Hut which are really cheap here compared to the US. So of course I got myself a supreme pie with everything on it. It's great, eating fast food is one of those things you are conscious of at home but aren't so much on the road. Also in this category are showers and what day of the week it is.
Before leaving the Rotorua area, we went to a few touristy geothermal areas and also went Zorbing. The concept of Zorbing is simple - climb into a huge inflatable ball and get pushed down a hill on a zig-zag path. They put some water in with you and it's kind of like sliding around in a washing machine for a minute or so. I laughed my ass off the entire way down. I highly recommend this activity.
We then left Rotorua and came to Taupo for a day to see the town and gear up for our hike. Also me and Al went on a 2 hour sailboat ride on the lake, Bryan rented a scooter, and the next day
BBQ at the hostel in Thames
The world famous chef still has time for a photo. we got up at 5am and left for the 3 day hike. Now we're back in Taupo to pick up the van and tomorrow are driving down to Napier. See ya'll later.
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kaz
non-member comment
unreal
like i said, unreal!