Oh the many adventures of Nick Coulson

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I left early the following morning to go in hunt of The Lord f The Rings scenes and began on Mt. Victoria in the city, found the scene where Frodo first encounters the Ring Wraiths and yells "Get off the Road!" I then drove to see some of the Bree locations before ending up at Weta Cave production studios which was just a small building because we aren't allowed to see the studio because of top secret movie secrets but I saw a bunch of models and sculptures and works from other films such as King Kong, the Hercules and Xena tv show, sculptures of Gollum and Gimli, elven armour, 30 days of night vampires, props from Hellboy and many more.

I watched a short film there about the movie studios history and then looked through the gift shp at the over priced everything they had. $1200 for an elven cloak, $200 for the Ring of Power, etc etc. Well out of my budget.

I left Wellington and drove north to Upper Hutt where I strolled around the gardens of Isengaard. I missed Helm's Deep because you can only do it with a tour as it is in an active quarry but did manage to make it to the sit of Rivendell and wandered around there for a while. It was interesting to see these sights that I will likely recognize more on re-watching the movies however they took down all of their sets to preserve the natural beauty so it was less magnificent then one thinks it will be. I left up north to a town I cannot pronounce or remember its name of more than Parapara...... and stayed the night just enjoying the peace of a small town and then sunset. I got really into a novel that day to and spent the majority of the night finishing it off. A very good way to relax =) Tea is also in every single hostel here so I make the most of anything free as much as I can.

I left to New Plymouth the following day, a nice lazy drive only about 3 hours. I drove along the surf highway, stopping to admire the black sand beaches. It took me a second to compute that I was indeed looking at black sand not just dirt. The massive dunes just looked so alien I had to spend some time walking around and observing them, and of course the tuft and sedimentary layers present in the nearby rocks. I really enjoy the black sand beaches but they were terrible for surfing. At least in white sand you can see the rocks... we'll leave it at that. The beach is some sort of iron ore sand so as you can imagine it is terrible in the summer because it becomes a BBQ essentially. I was also lucky enough to see Mt Taranaki that day. MY FIRST VOLCANO! It was spectacular and I got basically the full view all around it as the surf highway basically goes in a large circle around it. I was unable to get in touch with my room mates parents in New Plymouth so I spent the first night in a hostel just chatting it up with a couple french and german travelers and playing cards.

The next day I wandered around town exploring, climbed a giant rock to get a god view of the beaches and the town, it was basically rock climbing because the path was so steep but extremely worth it. I drove to Mt Taranaki to explore it but it was shrouded in clouds which stayed until I left so I only saw it the first day. I did wander some of the old growth forests just to check them out and upon returning to town I got in touch with my buddies parents and stayed the night with them. They had a hot tub so I utilized that and just took it easy the next day to just relax in a homey environment. I went around and saw sights from my friends town like his high school and rugby field, met his sister and her kids, both of his grandparents (my rent for visiting), before a nice mutton roast and beet root salad. Best feed I have had in ages!

I left the next day and drove south so I could get the full view of the National parks mountains and Mt Doom. It was nice when got to Whangerai but after I got to the mountains the weather became wretched. I saw the most southerly mountain but I missed out on the one I wanted to see the most. Mt Dom. Lake Taupo was terribly stormy to so I just drove through that, though there didn't appear to be much to do there either. It was odd driving along the desert highway because it was essentially a desert. With black sand but enough bushes to cover the entire valley. The irony struck me of it being a desert and yet having so much rain it was almost as if someone had tipped a swimming pool over on the land. I stopped at a recreation of the 8th natural wonder of the world, the limestone terraces destroyed in the 1880'2 by a volcanic eruption. They are basically terraced pools of varying colors due to their depth and varying chemical composition that formed a large semi circle looking like an amphitheater. There were other geothermal springs but nothing as exciting as the terraces there.

I made it to Rotorua that night but decided I would stop along the way to find a hot springs. I found one with reasonable success and just soaked in it for about an hour. Rotorua is renown for its geothermal activity, a geologists haven. I arrived in town, got a room in the hostel and spent the night playing cards and dice with more Germans! They are everywhere!

I jumped in my car early the next morning to catch the geyser at 10:15am and go to a geothermal national park. The geyser was slightly disappointing because they essentially added soap to disturb the layer of warm and cold water to stimulate the geyser, it didn't occur natural which was the disappointing part. However, it was amazing to see a geyser as I had never seen one before. I went to visit some mud pools which were very soupy because of the rain so not as magnificent but still exciting and then off to the park. I have never seen such a wide array of colored water in my life. The turquoise blue silica rich waters, neon pastel lime green, slightly reddish tinged water and of course black and grey muds. There were limestone terraces that ran about 1700m's, random mud bubbles, a few geysers, small 'waterfalls' making elaborate limestone veils, an extremely large lake that looked like it went on for several km's that was a tepid green color, definately not normal for a lake it was crazy to see so much of that odd green water sitting in a lake you'd expect to find nestled in the mountain of BC. There were lots of collapsed craters and sulphur mounds/deposits and numerous other deposits of arsenic, iron oxides etc etc.

The best place by far was the champagne pool. It was a deep sky blue with a red rimmed platform slightly below the waters surface contrasting beautifully. The water was 65 m's across and 62 m's deep. I guess the surface temp was 74 degrees C and the water at the base was about 260 degrees C and by the time it evaporated was around 26 degrees C. The red was primarily arsenic and I believe some sort of iron oxide that gave it the rusty orange/red appearance.

I stopped at several places in the town to check out the geothermal activity within the town and there were numerous parks with large lakes and mud bubbles or babbling pools in the middle of paths, parks and streets. t was just so weird to think that all the geological activity was even in the middle of the town. places used it for heating, cooking and of course spa therapy. On my way out of town I stopped to do a zorb. I dove into the big ball and was greeted by a large splash of warm water everywhere before I was pushed down a hill. It was impossible to tell which way was up and slipping and sliding everywhich direction down the zig zag course so I hit corners and was tossed about only seconds later to go in the opposite direction. It lasted about 45 seconds and was a blast!

I drove to Waitomo that evening, booked my rafting trip for the next day and went to bed early. Got up, convinced another German t come with me, and she did, then headed off to the caves! We suited up in 5mm wetsuits and got helmets and climbing gear then were off. We started with a 27m abseil into the cave. Once down there it was like looking at something from Jurassic Park. The caves loomed around us and looking up was just a tangled mess of jungle and vines/trees. Once down we waded upstream and explored the caves. We crawled on our bellies under rocks and through holes, climbed boulders, and got nice and muddy before enjoying the glow worms. They weren't as spectacular as they could have been because the recent floods had washed them away. There were still hundreds and they looked like the night sky. In the dry caves and in good dry times in the caves, the worms were so numerous you could see your hands and make out the person next to you. Here though I couldn't make out my hand in front of my face it was so dark! They were an creepy blue color made by bio luminescence which was amazing! The worms were ugly as hell but the blue light was amazing! So comfortable and calming to admire, they were stretched throughout the entire cave s I got to enjoy them for about the 2.5 hours we were there. We hopped on some inner tubes and rode the rapids down through the cave back t the opening and through to the other cave where we went down some rapids for some time with worms on the ceiling again before having to trudge back up against the current again. We got back to the junction we abseiled down and then rock climbed (a simple climb) up 25m then were done! We got soup and photos at the end ending our caving experience. It was awesome and I would highly recommend it to anyone!

I drove around going on hikes and just mucking around enjoying Waitomo but left when it started to rain again and drove to Hamilton. There wasn't much there but I did see a statue of Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show before staying with a friend from Edmonton. They made me dinner and we just chatted the night away. I woke up early this morning, went and got two new tires for the front of my car because one was extremely deformed and beginning to show its metal threads, then drove to Raglan for some surf. Sadly the wind is vile here at the moment so an early start will mean less wind and better waves. There is a bit of poor swell at the moment but it will get better by the end of the week so I will see whether I stay here or drive to either the Corrimandel peninsula or head north to Pahia for the surf. I have 13 days left before Australia so I must make the most of it!

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Comments

[Monica Coulson]

Wow! You are doing so much neat stuff! Keep going strong Nick! Love ya, Mom