Mount Doom

February 15

I woke up this morning to the sound of Ian stirring. It was about a quarter to 9 and I got out of bed a few minutes after he did. I brought my netbook into the living room to blog, happy to find Kate in her pajamas and the German couple just starting breakfast; no one in the house had gotten an early start this morning. Our plan was to go back to the conveniece store this morning to get pancake mix, eggs, and possibly ice cream (we had a craving for ice cream after dinner last night but none of the stores were open. Wes suggested having it on pancakes for breakfast). Ian and I decided that this was a good time to pick everything up, so we drove into town together. We found eggs and syrup easily enough, but it took us some time to pin down the pancake mix. We were looking for the standard cardboard boxes, but 4 Square (the big New Zealand grocery chain) only sold pancake mix in a container about the size and shape of a large plastic syrup bottle. It's a just-add-water job and the powdery mix leaves enough space in the bottle to pour the water straight in, no mixing bowl required. This turned out to be a most convenient way of doing things, and none of us could find flaw with the final product.

We returned to find Kate smoking outside on the patio. She caught us immediately.

“So you bought your ice cream after all. Better late than never I suppose?”

“Haha, yeah. Better late than never,” we replied.

“You're not seriously going to eat that for breakfast are you?”

We mumbled a sheepish response as we went inside. We did eat it for breakfast and it was the tastiest start to the day I can remember in a long time. The final meal was about five pancakes each, three eggs (I poached mine, the rest were fried), and more french vanilla ice cream than we had a prayer of getting through.

“What would your mothers think?” Kate wondered. She tells us she has been reminding herself more and more of her mother, especially with her guests that stay for several weeks.

“ 'Eat your veggies! It's no wonder you're getting sick,' ” she has caught herself saying before. She is an interesting woman. She describes her choice not to have children as “very different” from her mother. She runs this homestay and apparently sells wine, but we don't know what it is she does with her time when she's away from Evony. She seems to be passively outgoing – interacting with hundreds of strangers, but only when they wander to her doorstep. It took us about another hour to get packed up and ready to leave her home, and before none of our trips to the car did she ask us for our fee. She even gave us a couple of gas canisters for our stove before we left. As we rounded up our money (among ourselves and still, incredibly, unbidden) we decided we had very much been given the right price for the night. Discounting the price of the gas, our luxurious homestay was no more expensive than a hostel. We paid up and asked Kate which of the many wineries in town she recommended. Her choice was the simply named Martinsborough Vineyard, just around the corner.

The vineyard was small; they didn't offer tours, but they did do tastings. I figured I would enjoy it the least and offered to drive and let Zach, Wes, and Ian try the wine. As they received their sequence of sips (white to red, each with winemaker's notes) I ambled around the room looking at the various pictures, posters, and prizes hanging on the wall. Martinsborough Vineyard is quite proud of its Pinot Noir, which in 1997 won the title of best in the world at a competition in London. The Pinot Noir is the last wine in the tasting and while the woman behind the counter poured it she informed us that it (this batch, at least) sells for $70/bottle. The guys reported liking all the wines, but not being particularly impressed by any. Ian wondered how objectively wine could be judged, especially to earn a "best in the world" distinction. We left, mostly feeling out of place. We were American twenty-somethings wearing very casual clothing, with no intention of buying any wine. The people we saw while we were there were much older, wearing nice suits, and prefectly happy tossing out a few hundred dollars for fine wines.

We got in the car and braced ourselves for a long drive. It was not quite noon. The two breaks we took on the road were for groceries at Pak n Save and lunch/bathroom on the side of the road. As we drove after lunch, Zach received a text from Eric back at WashU saying we needed to figure out housing by tomorrow. Unfortunately, the text had been sent yesterday. Figuring we had very little time, we called him and had a trans-continental housing meeting. Alison even participated stateside. It was quite the affair. We figured out what we wanted them to apply for (we had left partially-filled applications in St Louis) and, pleased with our timeliness, continued toward Tongariro National Park.

This park was the filming location for Mordor, and Mount Ngauruhoe, one of the three primary peaks, was used for none other than MOUNT DOOM! We were looking for it as we drove in, Ian's guide promising that its shape was distinctive and impossible to miss. Our eyes caught on a view something like this (none of us took a picture, to my knowledge):

Image courtesy wikipedia

"That doesn't quite look like Mount Doom..."

It was the biggest thing in sight, though. I kept looking back at it, wondering if it could actually be right. Then we saw this:

MOUNT DOOM!

This was a rather exciting discovery. There was fog coming up, seemingly straight out of the ground, that added a foreboding air to the scene. After we set up our tent at the nearby campgrounds (and I rock-hopped down another stream), we drove back within view of the ominous volcano. Here it was easy to get totally engrossed in imagining Mordor. There was little vegetation among the rocks, and that which was there looked quite unfriendly. As I explored, trying to get closer to the cone, I quickly lost all sight of the guys through the dense fog. I could imagine orcs hiding in valleys and around corners. 

I turned around when I reached a deep river valley that would take much too long to cross. Dinner would probably be ready soon. As I journeyed back, I ran into Ian. We had a brief stalking battle, throwing things at each other through the mist, before greeting each other in a more civilized way. By the time we got back to our mobile kitchen, Zach and Wes had nearly finished the chilli dogs. I wanted to take a good picture of our group with Ngauruhoe in the background before all the late was gone. That proved to be difficult, though. My SD card is unreadable and my camera won't recognize batteries (at least in picture-taking mode), Ian's camera takes one picture a day, Wes's camera doesn't recognize batteries, Zach's camera only takes a rechargeable battery, which is empty, and isn't that great of a camera anyway. We eventually gave up on the picture and turned on our headlamps to enjoy another tasty dinner in New Zealand.