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Published: December 6th 2009
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Mount Maunganui.
Beach day at the Mount. After leaving Rotorua, we headed to the city of Hamilton for a couple of nights. We rented a small cabin in a holiday park, and spent a couple of days cruising around the city. We went swimming one afternoon at "Waterworld", hit up the downtown district for some lunch and checked out the Hamilton Public Gardens, which is one of the biggest attractions in the city. No disrespect to Halifax, but the public gardens here made our version at home look like an ill-conceived dorm room grow operation.
The city has pumped millions upon millions of dollars into this thing, re-creating landscapes from all over the world and from many different eras as well. The weather was also great the days we were there, so no complaints.
After leaving Hamilton, we came back to Tauranga as we had a few weeks or work lined up. On our way back, we stopped at a place called "Hobbiton", which apparently was used to film a lot of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Seeing as I'm not exactly what you'd call a fan of these movies, I was a little taken back when they demanded $60 dollars to take the tour!.
Huka Falls.
The view from below. The woman at information wouldn't even tell us where the place was, and if I can be honest here, she was quite rude when I decided not to shell out my money. I was tempted to go on an anti-Lord of the Rings rant right there in the information site, but I decided to just take my sixty dollars and move along quietly. It's okay though, since I didn't want to spend 2 hours with a bunch of nerdlingers anyway.
Back in Tauranga on Friday night, we took advantage of some great weather and did a lot of swimming and body surfing over the weekend. We got in a couple games of tennis as well during the days and did some bar-b-qing in the evening.
On Monday morning, I started my new job.
At the Sanford Fish Plant.
At 5 am.
Yes, the job is as terrible as it sounds but it's only for a couple of weeks. I'm trying to make some money in order to make my first Christmas away from home as enjoyable as possible, and employment at the moment in New Zealand is definately at a premium. Most of the
seasonal jobs like fruit picking don't ramp up until the New Year, so I bit the bullet and signed up for two weeks of Fish Factory duty.
You don't have to commit to the work for very long (probably because the training process is a huge guy wearing an apron handing you a scoop and saying "Go over there and gut fish"), and the hours/money isn't too bad. At the very least, it's something that you can chaulk up as a "character builder".
Or at least that's what I keep telling myself.
Funny enough however, a storm came into Tauranga on Tuesday afternoon and wiped out the rest of the work week at the Plant, so we found ourselves with a few days with nothing to do. We decided to hit the road again and headed to Taupo, stopping at the bright blue Huka Falls along the way.
We had dinner in the downtown area called "Hell's Pizza", where everything on the menu is named something evil. It seems like a strange idea for a restaurant, considering all of the people that it alienates (children, religious types, etc.)... but I gotta admit that my Mordor pizza was
quite good. We stayed that night at a free camping spot just out of town called Reeds Farm, which sat just on the edge of a river. The storm that had hit Tauranga had slowly made it's way towards us however, as it poured on our tent for most of the night.
LA and I then decided to take on the Tongariri Alpine Crossing - a two day hike through the mountains of Ngauruhoe and Tongariri. It is considered one of the more beautiful walks in all of New Zealand, but unfortunately, most of the beauty was lost on us the first day as it rained for nearly the entire 13 kilometers... and we were left stumbling through the clouds and fog towards our cabin for the night. The temperature also dropped considerably as we got near the peak of Mount Tongariri - for an hour or so, I could have swore that I was back home as the weather resembled a Nova Scotia December a little too much.
We shared our cabin with about 20 other hikers. There was another Canadian couple in the mix (Alberta), and we got a game of Yahtzee going in the evening,
including a couple of Foreign travellers as well
When we woke up on Saturday, it had cleared up considerably and we were actually able to see some of the scenery around us. We were surrounded by mountains, snowcaps, bright blue lakes and terrain left from volcanic activity. I was told that Mount Tongariri, which we had hiked up the previous day, was also used in the Lord of the Rings movie... except it was called Mount Doom or something terrifying like that.
We walked the 16km down the other side the next morning, travelling by the Emerald Lakes and hiking through an area that was covered in snow. We also some passed through a rainforest during the last 5 km before emerging in the afternoon. when it was all said and done, we covered close to 30 km over the two days, and I was exhausted.
We headed back to the homebase of Tauranga yesterday, stopping at Mount Maunganui for a Christmas Parade. It was a new experience to be able to stand and watch in shorts and a tee shirt, eating an ice cream while Santa cruised by (sweating his ass off by the way). It's
hard to believe that Christmas is only two and a half weeks away. Without the winter to remind me, I honestly forget a lot of the time.
It's back to work tomorrow, so today will be used to hopefully do some surfing and get a few other errands done. I hope everything is going well back home for everyone. Happy Holidays.
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Tammy Fulmore
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The sheep that got away
was a male? Seriously, great pictures, awesome story. You guys sound great, after just talking on the phone to you both. I know it is hard to believe it is this close to Christmas, especially in the warm weather. I see Santa has a speedboat, instead of a sleigh! It just seems wrong, doesn't it? You and Leigh-Ann are getting so much exercise, there will be nothing left of you both!! Take care, and have fun. Love Mom xoxo