Second Update from NZ

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Hey all!
I managed to get some internet time! I did so much since the past mail that I don't know if i can put it all in here, I will try and keep it short since I know it's boring to read Large mails.
I suggest you read this in 2 parts!! it is just too long.

Anyway the last time I wrote we just arrived in auckland, we were supposed to split, and we did but only 2 left for the beginning since 5 others wanted to do the same thing. So I stayed in the van with the guy that bought it from us together with 3 other people from before.
We decided to go to Coromendell, it's a pennisulla to the east of auckland. There we stayed one night in Camping, which was great because there was no rain, can't think about doing it in the rain with our lousy 35$ tents.
The next day we finally did a walking track, it was a 1 day simple track, about 6-7 hours walking.
It had nice view, mainly jungle like but not amazing. The girls had a bit of problem doing it!.
I was happy to finally do some walking in NZ!.
After that track we went along the coast to Hot water beach, where you can dig your own spa pool in the sand of a beach.
There were a lot of people there, so we didn't stay there too long, but it is an amazing beach and it was funny seeing all the Nzers digging their little pools.
We slept at another town still in coromemdell to rest from the long trip and then the next day headed to rotrua.
Rotrua is a bigger city and tourist attraction, there are geyzers and hot spas everywhere there. We went to a paying spa and stayed there for a few hours, the place was packed with asian people, but It was great fun anyway, very relaxing.
Then we went to our HIT hosts for the night, this was really amazing they live in a farm in the middle of no where, their house if all from wood, very well taken care of, they have everything in their kitched and offered us a great meal!, they are really the nicest people I meet till then, and we had a great night!! They also recommnded a free hot spa and attractions in rotrua for us.
So the next day we did what they told us, it's called skyride and you take a gondolla("rachbal") to the hill over rotrua and from there you get like karting cars that you can use to go down. It was a lot of fun, and very nice view.
After that we went to the free spa place which was AMAZING!! you can check the pictures I put of it. I can't describe how good it was, we cooked dinner there it was great. We came back to our hit hosts, had some nice talks and went to sleep.
The next day we did the geyzer toor in rotrua and saw a "Mauri"(native new zealanders) show, it was nice but nothing amazing.
From there we headed to taupo.
There we booked skydiving!!. so the next day at 11am I did a skydive 12,000 feet, It was incredible, not scarry at all, a lot of fun, it's a shame it's so short, but who knows I might do another one, they are so chiep there, and the view you see when the parachute opens is spectecular!.
Anyway in taupo I decided to split from the big group for real, and took a lift with another guy I met called ron, he's a really nice guy.
I waited for him in taupo while the other guys went and did the tongariro northern circuit(it is the best walking track in the north island, and the 1st day of it is considered the best 1 days circuit in all NZ called the tongariro crossing).
I did it with ron the next day, finally a 3 days track!!, it was really hard to do with the big bags, but I managed and not only that the first day I climbed up Mount doom from lord of the rings, it's a side track of 3 hours and very very very very hard!!(for me).
The view of the first day was the best view I have ever seen in any country!! It's a must do for anyone that comes to new zealand.
The first day was also the hardest since we had to do all the climbing with the big bags(except the climb to mount doom, we left the bags and hoped no on will take them, it's impossible to do it with the bags), but the view was worth it, we met the 4 israelis I split from in the hut since they did the track the other way around, the girls there decided to quit since it was really hard, but they missed the best part, shame on them ;).
The next 2 days were actually easy and clam, we had great fun in the huts, cooking our food a lot of free time amazing views, they were not as good as the 1st day, but they kept changing all the time. We finished the track after 3 days very tired but very happy.
We slept another day in taupo since ron wanted to skydive the next day, we stayed in a hit of a not so nice women called chrissy, it was a bit annoying, but at least for 7$ we got an amazing shabat dinner, with BBQ and potatoes and salad and burekasim, the best meal I had in NZ.
and since it was after 3 days of track food(instant noodles mainly) I ate like 10 people.
The next day ron skydived and after that we took another israeli named zvika and went to the waitomo caves.
We did the waitomo caves with some sneplling and climbing, it was very fun but it was a bit expensive and I was not that pleased, could have been much better. The waitomo caves are amazing caves with "netifim" and worms that glow in the dark, very nice sight.
After that we decided to go to mount Taranaki or mount Egmont, same mountain 2 different names.
We did the hard walking track there, it's a 1 day walking track which takes 5 hours going up and 3 hours going down.
It looks really impossible to climb the mountain, but it is worth it, it was the hardest climb i ever did, mainly because you know you have a lot of climbing and more and more and it never ends ;) it took us only 3 hours and a half to go up, but it looked like forever!!.
Luckily we had amazing weather which is very rare! there were no clouds at site no rain nothing. from the summit which is like 2500 meter tall we saw almost half the north island!!, the views were just amazing almost as good as the tongariro, and all 3 of us felt it was worth the effort to climb. Not many people do this track, so we felt proud of ourselves ;) I did it almost on willpower alone since I am in very bad shape.
I hope I will publish pictures soon and you can see how amazing it is!.
From mount taranaki we headed straight to wellington, which is the capital of new zealand and where you take the ferry to the south island.
I will go to the south island on the 20th of january, till then I will visit wellington which is supposed to be a great city.
Today we had very bad weather so I couldn't really enjoy the city.
In the south Island we are probably splitting since ron(who is my lift) is meeting his girlfriend on the 26th in christchurch. I will look for another lift or I might buy a car in christhurch with the girl I split from before, I stil don't know we will see!!

Anyway I am really sorry for the long long long mail, hope I didn't bore you too much.
It was really great hearing from everyone, and I really miss home! I do, but I am enjoying myself now.

I will upload pictures soon, since I spent too much time on this mail,
Keep in touch everyone! and till the next mail, bye bye!

Omer.

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