Beginnings and endings...

Alright so this is gonna be a long one, I'll try to keep the writing to a minimum.
A little South of Auckland is the Tongoriro National Forest (where Mt. Doom is) and the best walks of the North Island. Unfortunatly, like I think I said, the wheather was horrible and I didn't get to do the crossing. Around the peaks are huge arid red plains that it turns out were used for the shots of the plains in Mordor (ya I have a couple of LOTR reffereces, don't judge me to harshly )


The mountain in the back I am pretty sure is called Mt. Ngauruhoe which is the mountain that is Mt. Doom. I never got to see it unwrapped from than thick fog so I'm not sure but anyway its pretty crazy.

The Park is beautiful (despite its use in the movie) and all sorts of streams and valleys criss cross the highway.

here's how dorky I get, since I couldn't climb it, I got a picture of the map showing where I was (don't laugh... to hard )
South of the National Park is the beautiful Lake Taupo Region which is some of the most beautiful scenery, I think, on the North Island. The lake is enormous and, like all lakes in New Zealand, fills a huge crater formed when massive volcanos blew there tops and created a deep valley. There are lots of stops along the way and at one were these cool black swans

I thought this picture was especially cool...

We pretty much went south from Taupo to Wellington and that city is pretty cool but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I learned there, at the American Embassy, that they can't help get me a new passport and I have to go all the way back up to Auckland. Its frustrating that the place that helps you is not in the capital of the country. Although I find it very "American" that the true influence of America is in the economic capital of the country (Auckland) as opposed to their declared captial. (all the other countries have there embassies in Wellington and that where you go for passport help, but not us.)
All in all Wellington is a pretty city


You take the ferry from Wellington to Picton and the South Island really is the beauty of the 2. After you get out of the north bits the rocky coasts get rough and beautiful and the mountains kick higher and higher. Snowtopped peaks are everywhere despite the season.

a view from on of the many west coast South Island Beaches

and another
The first truly cool city in the South is Rotoura, known for its geothermic activity and rich Maori culture.

this is a monument in the still functioning modern moari village there

a view looking over rotoura to to lake rotoura.

one of the prettier hotpools around rotoura. This one is called the artists palet

anther of rotoura's hotpools
South of Rotoura the tru mountains of the south island start, the Souther Alps. Most of the little towns have a rish gold and coal mining history and were much bigger n the 1850s and 60s. Charelston is a (now) tiny little town but they have a preserved gold mine there that I went to see.

all of the original equipment and stuff is there

the tunnels are extensive (some stretch over 20 kilometers) and I was suprised how little supervision we had there. The flashlight they gave us was aweful but If i had brought my headlamp we would have been free to explore as deep as we wanted into the tunnels. Quite a liability I think.

once out of the first bit of mountains and heading south west you reach the coast again and paporoa national park famous for its pancake rocks and blowholes. The waves crash into underwater caves and are shot up through tiny holes in the rocks.
We didnt see the shots cause the tide was too low but the rocks were awesome.



pretty far from home huh?
a bit furthur south on the west coast your forced to cut inland again up over the steeper parts of the Souther Alps

This is the sunset over Arthur's pass. After the crossing you head back out to the coast and there you enter glacier country which is propbably the coolest stuff so far. I hike on a glacier called the Franz Joseph which moves closer to the sea about a meter a day right now.

they take you pass this sign to scare you I think

the glacier


once we got up the face there were caves and cravasses to walk through, it was really cool


Just over the top of the glacier is the Mt Cook range with is where they filmed the lighting of the beacons of gondor. Pretty dramatic peaks.

coming down into wanaka and queensland some of the volcanic lakes start again, this one is just outside of Wanaka.

lake wakatipu is the lake that queenstown is on


anway that updates you. Ill try not to be so long next time. I hope you feel better pops, I hate it when your sick. Miss everyone and I'll update it soon.

I'm so sorry to hear that some studying for finals is taking place, actually I'm happy to hear the studying is going on just sad that you have to take the finals. I think its a good thing I'm not there to distract you hard workers and expect even better marks from all of you as you have no excuse now but to do perfectly. I'm bummed to say that I still have not managed to sort out the camera thing, I almost lost a lot of pics trying to make it work in one machine so I think I'm just gonna buy a card reader. In fact I think I'll go do that now so expect photo updates very soon. I've just learned that I have to make a personal appearence in Auckland to get a new passport which sucks casue its pretty much as far out of the way as you can go and means about 2 days less travel time in the south. The good news is the South Island is as beautiful as they claim and I'm both excited and dissapointed about posting pictures cause I want everyone to see them, but they don't do the scenery justice at all. I promise to get back to you soon for these pics and more detailed travel update!

So I spent the last 2 days driving south through Rotorua, Taupo and the Tongariro national park. Rotorua is famous for its geothermal activity and we saw some really cool hot pools and gysers and that sort of thing. Sorry no picture updates cause I'm even more limited on where I can upload them now, as my USB cord was in my backpack. I've sorted the airline tickets and the passport should ba handled soon so no worries about that. Lake Taupo is amazing. Its framed by volcanos (as is everything in the country apparently) and the views are incredible. Tongariro National park is where a lot of the movies were shot and it was amazing too but the weather for horrible while we were there and we couldnt do the hiking that we wanted to do. I heard that it is going to snow there tonight. This country is so cold now I can't imagine it in the winter. Its way colder here than any florida winter day (which I know, my new england friends, is not saying a whole lot so no need for comment ) Anyway, Ill have more and pictures up when I get to wellington which will be soon so I'm excited about that.

Alright so as much as I like Auckland (right)I am so glad to be out of it. I picked up Sarah on the 4th at the Auckland international Airport and we stopped briefly in the city to get groceries and then we got outa there. The city is ok, has nice parks and that sort of thing, but it lacks that special something that makes a big city more than just a big city so I am glad to be away. We camped to first night in Orewa a small little beach town about an hour north of Auckland and got a special treat the next day and got to visit the ship yards of New Zealand Yachts. Its a custom building and refit shop for big boats and it was really cool. They didn't have any of their signature series yachts there but they were working on the worlds biggest sailing catamaran the France Douce (or something like that) and had a couple other big cool boats we got to see.
After that we decided we wanted to get to the south island as soon as possible and drove back to Auckland to restock and get some tickets for Sarah so that we could start heading south. This was a huge mistake, going back to the big city. While we were in the grocery store the van was broken into (either with a jimmy or we stupidly left a door open) and a ton of stuff was stolen, including my passport and airline tickets but I'm handling it and I don't think it'll be that big a deal. The police put a border alert on my passport and the Embassy in wellington will be reissuing me one and the tickets can be reissued and the fee is normally waved in the event of theft. In short I'm handling it so don't worry mom. Sarah had much more irreplaceable stuff stolen like her Journal that she'd been working on her whole travels and the cds that had all her trips pictures on it. it sucks cause the things they took mostly have no value to them, only my ipod and her mp3 player really. The other stuff will just end up in the garbage and that sucks cause its such a pain in the ass for me and heart ache for her. Thieves suck.
Anyway, I'm pretty over that, Sarah's having a bit more difficult a time and the following parts of the trip up till now have been incredible. We stayed the night in Waitomo at these glow worm caves that were so cool. You do a tour of these underground caverns that had been carved out by the river that still runs through them. the largest room in the complex is 15 meters tall and is 45 meters underground. At the very bottom is the river still and the last part of the tour is by boat and thats how you exit the complex. In the river part of the caverns are these glow worms that stick to the ceiling. They're the larva of these flies that only live for a couple of days and it looks like a night sky, its so cool.
After that this morning we've driven to Rotorua which is one of the most active geothermic areas in the world. The central park of the city has a bunch of bubbling mud pits and sulfur spitting boiling hot pools. Rotorua is also famous for its Maori villages, they're several in the area and they have cultural shows and museums and that sort of thing which we're doin tomorrow. after that its onto one of the big geothermal parks south of the city and then down further south to lake Taupo and the Tongariro National forest which is were (dorkily enough) a lot of the Lord of the Rings was filmed. I bought this road atlas for us to use and was reading it the other day and found out that it actually points out filming location along the whole country the same as it would actual places (they take it pretty seriously apparently since the release of the films tourism in New Zealand has increased about 3%) So for example there might be a mountain marked out in the atlas and under it in yellow writing (which denotes a middle earth location) will be writen "Mt. Doom". I only used that as an example cause its one that most people will recognize but the atlas gets as detailed as "plains of golgotha" and "gondor beacons" and "river anduin" Anyway I know its dorky but at least some of you will think its pretty cool.

here's a middle earth looking scene no, straight outa the shire?

one of Auckland's prettier parks. Sky city in the background.

same park, different view

one of the geothermal rock vents in Rotorua, i think this one is mad made

one of the natural ones, its stinks


just some cool rivers in the north island

the much envied but slightly embarrassing van.

another view at the Waitomo Caves

closeup of the crazy leprechaun man that they've painted on our van. Kinda scary no?

I've made it to Auckland. Got here pretty late at night and was tired so I haven't explored much but I am about to set out to do just that. So far it seems pretty cool. The hostel is nice, but I'm having some trouble with the camper van company but i think I'll be able to work them out. Its cold here, about 57 when I got in last night. I might need to get some warmer clothes! I'll get you updated about the city tonight, just wanted to let you know I'm safe and sound.