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Published: January 26th 2008
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Over the past week, we have slowly been working our way up the North Island. After spending a few days recuperating in Wellington, Ashley is finally on the mend which is great that she's feeling better. I stayed in Wellington for about 4 days at Laura's flat, and had a great time. She works at a outdoor rec store right on the harbor, so she gets to spend all day right on the water, lucky duck!
In Wellington we kindof just bummed around, one day Laura and I took the old-fashioned cable car up to the top of the mountain, where there are great views and the Wellington Botanical Garden. The gardens were amazing, just a massive park with trails winding all over the place, and cute little ponds, and even an open theater that has live music during the summer! Wellington is the biggest city that we've been to in NZ, but it still has such a great, chill vibe to it. The last morning in Wellington we picked up our rental car, which has been an experience in itself. By requesting "economy" range, we recieved a 1994 Toyota Corolla with a cassette deck. Do stores even SELL cassette tapes
Wellington Cable Car
Laura about to go up the mountain anymore? I had made all these mix CDs for our road trip, so that was a bit of a let down. We took off for Taupo, which is about 4 hours north of Wellington. Driving on the left side was surprisingly easy, I only hit one curb and one cone the whole four hours! Taupo is a fun little city set right on Lake Taupo, the biggest lake in NZ. We checked into our hostel, and wandered around the town for a bit. That night I had an early night because I was set to do the Tongariro Crossing the next day. The Tongariro Crossing is talked about as one of the best one-day hikes in NZ. It's an 18km hike that crosses across numerous active volcanoes, and the emerald lakes, which are these bright blue lakes set right into the gray landscape. There is a shuttle bus that picks you up in Taupo, and then picks you up at the end of the trail to take you back home. The bus came at the early early time of 5:30am, and I set off with a backpack full of snacks and a raincoat, because I had heard the weather changes
really rapidly up on the craters. I hiked with a couple of guys who I ran into that I knew from the Kiwi Ex. bus, so it was nice to have the company. The first 2 hours of the hike is entirely uphill, on an area appropriately called the Devil's Staircase, you are literally climbing up rocks and scrambling along. Once we got up to the top it flattened out a bit as you walked past the volcanoes and the open area of the craters. It took me about 7 hours to complete, so I was totally spent that night. It was an awesome hike though, in the course of the hike you go through every natural landscape: Rocky terrain, dry dusty sand, plains, and rainforest, it was crazy.
The next day Ashley and I woke up early to go SKY-DIVING!! I wasn't going to do this originally, but Lake Taupo is supposedly the best place (and one of the cheapest) to sky-dive in the world. We got picked up and taken out to the Taupo Airport, and were suited up before we even knew what was going on. My Tandem Master, as they call themselves, helped me
suit up, and then shouted "Ok just hold tight, I'll be back in 10!" I assumed he was going to grab a snack or a toilet, untill I saw him run out and jump onto another plane! The Tandem Jumpers must do about 20-40 jumps a day. Ash + I both elected to jump from 15,000 feet, the highest you can jump from. They put you onto this little tiny plane, with about 4 other people and their tandem masters, and you just sit in there, with no seatbelts, and a plastic door keeping you from flying out. While in flight Alex (My tandem master), hooked us together, and once we got to 15,000 he just scooted us to the open door, and pushed us out! I was freaking out on the flight up, but once you get in that plane, you are getting out of it, so theres really no choice involved.
The jump itself was absolutely insane, we free-fell for about a minute and a half before Alex pulled the shoot, and then you could see the whole of Lake Taupo and the mountains behind. Don't ask me about the free-falling part, I really can't remember most of
Hills of Wellington
Cute little colorful bungalow homes it, I think I like blacked out or something. It was absolutly crazy, and I can't wait to do it again. Ash + I are already talking about finding places in the United States to go again. I can totally see how people find these adrenaline rushes addictive.
After Sky-diving, we left Taupo in our car, to head up to Te Puke to visit Emma, my friend from camp. About 30 minutes into the drive, Ashley starting saying that the car was having trouble.
Ash: Umm....Alissa, the car isn't really driving.
Me: Yeah, I know, it's a 1994 Corolla- It doesn't exactly have the highest horsepower.
Ash: No really, my foot is all the way to the floor on the gas.
Me: Yeah, ok, just give it a little more, I'm sure it will make it up the hill.
Ash: No Alissa, the car is literally not going. Nothing's happening!
Me: (Noticing smoke coming out of the hood).....Yeah, maybe we should pull over.
So we pull over, and the hood is just furiously smoking, and Ashley and I run from the car like it might explode at any point. After staring at the car from 40 feet away
for a few minutes, and arguing whether the tank was empty or not, we realized that neither of us had the car knowledge to deal with this type of situation, and called NZ AAA. The guy came and immediatly told us that the car's engine, or fan-belt, or something inside that is pretty important, was completley shot. He towed us back to Taupo, where we were told we couldn't get a car replacement untill the next day. Atleast the car company put us up for a night, and we spent every cent of the 100$ we were alllowed for accomodation. The next day we got a new car, and headed up to Emma's house. Road-Trip take two!! Hopefully this car will work out a little bit better. So excited to spend the next few days with camp friends, its good to be back with people we know in a REAL house, after nearly a month strait of hostel rooms. Hopefully I'll be able to touch base once more before we take off for Bangkok on the 1st!!
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Jill
non-member comment
Did you have any idea, Alissa, before you embarked on this adventure, that you'd undertake such feats of daring? You've got guts, kid. I'm not sure whether your pluck or your devotion to your readers is more impressive. heaps of love, j