En Zed part 2

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Sorry but this is gonna be a short one....

Hop, skip and a jump to the north. nothing cool ...just a bus, ferry, and a bus. We stopped in Wellington. A buzzing city with a wild nightlife if you so desire. We cruised the streets getting our bearings the first day in town. The second day was spent with some Kiwi friends we made way back in Cambodia, Lynnette and Reese. the dynamic duo took us around town to some good look out spots and to a tasty little ice cream shop on the beach. After that it was off to there house to toss a load of laundry in and stuff ourselves with a home cooked feed. An amazing meal! Thanks for the wash and the grub. Reese and Lynnette have done some backpacking in there day so they understand the value of free laundry and a home cooked meal. We had some laughs over a few cold ones then we were back on our own. The next day was a travel day up the island to Taupo. Taupo is a small town with not a whole lot going on. However it makes for a good hub to do some pretty cool activities. The first on our plan was the Tongerio Crossing. A 23k hike up the self proclaimed "Devils Staircase". If you choose, you can hike up a famous spot in Lord of the Rings, Mt. Doom. We decided to skip that beast. We had a long enough day of hiking. Start hiking at 7am after an hour and a half drive...then walk for 8 hours and get back on the bus for another hour back to Taupo. smooth right...not so fast. Our return bus broke down on the highway, leaving us stranded on the side of the road waiting for help. Not exactly where you wanna be after a long ass hike and an empty stomach but we were fine. Next time i will save my last granola bar!
The next up on our adventures was the Wytomo Caves. They are huge caves filled with waterfalls and glow worms. The water is ice cold and the glow worms are not really worms...they are maggots. And the part that grows is there pooh. But it isn't very marketable to say "Come check out or glowing maggot pooh." So they call them works and leave the mystique of glowing little bugs in tact. It was a super cool experience. We floated on tubes down the pitch black caves following the glow worms to the next waterfall where we would either climb up or jump down. Not a bad way to spend the day.
After the caves we got back to our place in Taupo and chilled out shot some pool and called it a night. We had to catch a bus up to Auckland, where we spent a few days before we head off to Buenos Aires. We met back up with the other American girls, Sunny and Marissa. They had acquired to more American friends. We also met up with Dean and Rachel two Kiwi's that Krista met way back when. We all headed out to have a night on the town before we all went our own ways again.

We are now ready to move to a new continent, a new challenge, a new culture. Wish us luck. See you in Buenos Aires!

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