Getting to Welly

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Ok. Picking up from where I left, prior to heading for a sail i Sydney.
I am now a completely different place being Wellington, New Zealand so I will try my best to fill the gap inbetween.
Back to Sydney where I was preparing for the sail. Everything worked out exactly as we all wanted it to so after picking up a 4th crewmember -
former crew when David sailed the boat down to Sydney in the first place - the new dude, David, Mal and me headed for the boat currently located in a little marina in Sydney.
After rigging it up for a bit and making sure that everything was allright we took off, went out on motor and set sail heading north out of Sydney harbour to an area called Pittwater.
Sail was about 3-4 hours with good wind and David made sure to put me to work and teach me about sailing during the trip.
When we landed at a marina in pittwater somewhere in the afternoon it had become wine'o'clock so we all enjoyed a glass of wine on the deck before Mal and the dude headed back to Sydney for work the next day.
From this point on the plan was to stay in the broken bay area for a couple of weeks having both Rhys and Mal pop by once in a while and do day tours out to explore the surroundings.
Conveniently enough, everything worked out as planned so that was exactly what we did, and it was gorgeous! Once again I've gotten hooked on sailing!.. but I wonder how long it'll last this time.
In any case, we did a lot of sailing, David and I, and I have learned a lot by now!
Many days went on with going out to explore in the morning and coming back in the afternoon. One day we even saw Dolphins and heaps of them.. My guess is between 20 and 30 and they were
all dancing around, jumping and having a good time just in front of our boat and they even followed us for half an hour or so, so that was good compensation for the dolphin failure back in Paihia.
I was a bit too excited about their show to take any photos though. My camera was down below deck and I couldn't be bothered fetching it while they were performing so well. Sorry peeps. Have to come an experience it yourself this time.
During the quiet times on the boat happening every once in a while between tacking and turning, twisting and adjusting I noticed how cool polarized glasses actually are and spend way more time than I should've tilting my head and watching the sky. Good fun though and I had to do something 😊
At some point Rhys suddenly showed up at the boat but didn't really wanna sail as he was supposed to head back again early for a big horse race the following day and invited me to come. That I did and after having asked around a bit I managed to put together a whole suit - which was required to enter the members only area for which we had tickets -
and even though it may have looked a bit funny, I was allowed entrance and the show had begun. I lost all my money and it was raining hard from a gray and cold sky...
We got drunk though and ended up touring the different bars in Sydney all dressed up for a ball..
After the races I stayed put at Mals mansion for a bit, heading out for small day tours, taking care of a little interview at Animal Logic - which turned out pretty good - and otherwise being pretty damn lazy when I didn't go out for a drink with Rhys and his friends or watched movies.. which is pretty lazy as well.. I guess.
In any case, after once another day out, I got worken up REALLY REALLY early (exaggeration is required for you to understand my situation with a messed up day/night sleeping rythm and a huge hangover) and taken up to the boat by David and Mal where we were supposed to move it from it's current position on a birth-klklk to a mooring somewhere else.
Problem was though, that neither Mal or I had tried that before and someone was blowing a whole lot of wind in our direction, so needing to close in on the mooring, catch it with a boat hook, pull it onboard, strap it on to something strong, wasn't really proceeding as hoped.
When closing in on it we either didn't catch it or got it but had to let go again cos the boat was being blown away and we couldn't hold it manually - that was how we lost a boat hook as well when it didn't wanna let go of the mooring and we preferred to let go of the hook instead of taking a dive -.
Eventually we managed to pull the mooring out of the water and get some of it onboard but clearly it wasn't prepared to give up and put down a good fight trying at least to get our fingers in exchange of it going onto any cleetch. We tricked it though, with all of our cleverness and the mooring was trapped.

While having my share of the fun in Sydney, I had been trying to plan my further travels. Knowing that I only had about 2 month left before my plans for going to Asia would require my presence and Wellington being a pretty damn important stopover before going for the south island cos of Weta, I agreeed with myself to skip the rest of the north island and go straight to Welly
A direct plane from Sydney to Welly proved to be a little too expansice though, compared to Sydney-auckland and as I happened to have a spare bus ticket from Auckland to Welly, I though why not do that, save some money, see the rest of the north in a quicky and be done with it.
As the plan originated from my encredible brain, it was too genious to miss out on and I took the next flight back to Auckland. This time around, my visit was quick though. I stayed at Chris' place once again and during the 3 days I stayed there, he managed to leave me behind twice at random spots with the same strangers each time. They proved to be models and actresses though so I didn't really mind.
Leaving Chris behind as payback, I left for Rotorua on the Magic bus, met a bunch of cool people on the way, stayed at a great hostel, went out drinking with them all, woke up the next day having planned to go Zorbing and though... "no".
When you are lying in bed, once again with a huge hangover, looking out the window on a cold and gray day and thinking of getting put into a huge inflatable ball in company of cold water and get pushed down a hill you are not likely to think: "Hell yeah. Nothing I'd rather do!"
So we went to the Polynesian Spa instead and enjoyed a hot and relaxing mineral-water spa with a view over a huge lake and beautiful landskape. That was probably the best choice I've made so far.

Heading for Taupo the next day, my new friends were going for either Bungy Jumping or Skydive which tempted me a lot, both of them and I would have love to write here that I did it with them. I didn't though. I was still eating my breakfast when the bus conveniently enough left without me.
I might add though that the biggest reason for not doing skydive was because of my plans of doing it over a glacier and not a lake, just to make the best out of it and as it's pretty damn expensive I prefer going for the real deal in the first go.
Bungy jump was different though. Guess I still need time to convince myself. I'm nearly there though...
The day after, still in Taupo we had planned for a hike through Tongariro Crossing and as the weather was a little unpredictable at that time we had been told to call the crossings shuttle company early in the morning to get a weather report and whether they were going or not.
When we called them at 6 in the morning everything seemed to be fine though so we packed up our stuff, got ready and got picked up and taken to the park (Not quite true as we were driving a little ourselves first and then got picked up, but thats too complicated to write).
On the way to the park the shuttle driver was telling us that if we encountered any bad weather we should turn back as it's pretty tough conditions up there and not all fun if you get caught in a snowstorm.
There was a point of no return though, were it wouldn't make sense to get back any longer and as soon as we passed that point we encountered the bad weather. We had wind around 60km/h on the tip of the mountain doing it's best to blow us down into the abyss. No humans were harmed during the hike though
and only stories remain about small girls having to get strapped on to bigger people to not get blown away. It was a truly amazing walk and even though the weather blocked for many of the 'supposed-to-be' fantastic views I definitely got an exciting experience I wont forget and the views I got to see were still above anything I've ever seen before.
After surviving Tongariro Crossing we returned to the hostel, ordered pizza and went for the hot tub.. The hot tub was pretty cold though so it ended up with a warm shower instead. Almost perfect.
Later that day we found that the exact shuttle company we had called early that morning had been just about the only one running that day with the rest of the companies canceling cos of bad weather.
The next day I was supposed to leave Taupo with the Magic Bus taking me the last way to Wellington. I slept through it though and ended up hitchhiking the last bit instead, but that's always interesting anyway and went without any issues 😊

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