The Rest of the Roadtrip

February 16: Through the fog of Mordor


We woke up this morning to less-than-stellar weather. But what do you expect when you're in the domain of Sauron? We drove to Whakapapa to catch our shuttle to the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. When we found out the price of the tickets ($35/person), we briefly considered nixing the hike and finding something else nearby to do instead. Did we really want to do it in the rain? We decided to go for it, though, and in retrospect I'm glad we did. First, it was great exercise. The main hike is 19.6 km, and there are several side trails, one of which goes to the top of Mount Doom Ngauruhoe. With the amount of car-sitting we'd done recently, this was a welcome change.
Secondly, it really made us appreciate our later return journey. When we did it today, we saw very close to nothing of the landscape. The fog from last night had only increased, and the cold temperature and spots of rain hurried us along the trail. At one point, we walked around the rim of a huge lake, within a stone's throw of the water, and had no idea it was there. We also had nowhere close to good enough visibility to do the Ngauruhoe side trail. When we tried to start the side trail, we couldn't even see the mountain. And the trail starts at its base. We walked over volcanic pebbles that looked like giant peppercorns, trying to keep within view the poles that marked the trail. This was hard enough to do and we turned around. Only on our return visit did we discover that we had turned around before the steep part of the cone (most of the hike) even started, and that this section was completely unmarked. We had our lunch by the Emerald Lakes, small, smelly bodies of sulfuric water a short distance before the much larger lake that we were oblivious to.
Thirdly, the Crossing was a great chance for conversation that often doesn't happen in the car. Especially with the pervasive fog inhibiting our sightseeing, we got to spend a lot of time just talking. (And staring at the ground -- this led to a very strong optical illusion when we reached a more open area with a clearing in the fog: hills seemed to be moving perpetually away from us!)
After we finished the trek, we had to decide where to spend the night. We had to be in Auckland in two days, but the drive there was only around 6 hours. After making and subsequently cancelling a hostel reservation in Taupo, we drove on to Rotorua and booked a room at The Funky Green Voyager. This was a very fun, very communal hostel with friendly staff and backpackers from all over the world. Though we mostly kept to ourselves while we were here, there were always big, international conversations going late into the night.

February 17: The Last Day

We got a relatively late start to the day today. At 8:30, I was the first one up, but we didn't have groceries and everyone awake until past 10. At this point, the kitchen was closed for cleaning. To pass the time, we cleaned the car (which had become an organizational disaster) and packed all our belongings for easy shuttle transport. We started making breakfast at noon: I was the cook and omelets were the goal. Unfortunately, the best-sized pan for the job was cast iron, and, as I discovered, omelets don't work well in cast iron pans. What came out was a mess of egg, sausage, spinach, and a few other assorted ingredients. By no account were they in omelet form. After the first one I switched to a bigger, less sticky pan, and cooked three omelet slops at once. They tasted good enough. We finished eating somewhere around 1 and went out to explore Rotorua (or Whaingaroa, as the Maori call it).
The smell of sulfur is unavoidable in Rotorua. Walking around ranges from mildly unpleasant to very, very unpleasant. The smellier end of this scale is reached at each of the hot springs Rotorua is famous for. If you subvert your faculty of smell and explore the springs, they're really quite cool. They look like bubbling mudbaths and served, not so long ago, as natural hot tubs. I was struck by how discrete the boundaries of these springs were; despite the fact that they're spread over the whole of Rotorua (and beyond), each individual spring has a well-defined, limited area. Of course, at some point, our noses took charge and led us away from each and every spring we encountered.
After our circuit of the town, we returned to the FGV to get our car and drive to the nearby redwood forest. Zach tells us the trees grow three times as fast here as they do in their native California. We have lunch at 5:30 and are officially back on school schedule. After eating, we followed one of the shorter trails through the forest. The trees were magnificent. They were both incredibly tall and incredibly straight. There were also a lot of ferns growing there. While we walked, we talked about the difference between the Redwood and Sequoia National Parks in the states, General Sherman (which I had never heard of before), and the tree you can drive through. It's incredible how big these things get.
Back at the hostel we made rice and beans with venison sausages. It was a good, hearty meal, and for the first time in the whole road trip, we didn't finish it. As we went to bed that night, we were disappointed that the trip would soon be over, but excited to actually start the semester.


Morning of February 18: Turning in the Keys (or The Breaking of the Fellowship)


We got up at 7 this morning and used up the remainder of our oats on breakfast. As with the previous night, this meal proved to be too much for us. Our collective metabolism must already be settling down for the semester. We rushed to leave the hostel by 8, since we had to be at the airport in Auckland by 1:30. Characteristically, I slept through most of the drive. We topped off our petrol ("gas" = "petrol") twice before returning the car. As we pulled into the Apex carpark at 11:40, our odometer reached 6001.5 km. We'd been hoping to top 6000, and we just made it! One fewer wrong turn and we would have missed the mark. In case you were wondering, our preferred units for this accomplishment are megameters (6) and albatross days (3 (did you know an albatross can fly 2000 km a day?)). A shuttle took us to the airport where we met our AU contacts. We were (quite) early, though this didn't cause nearly as much of an inconvenience to us as our contact suggested when we arrived. The next wave of students arrived on schedule a few minutes later, and we just rode the Super Shuttle with them to our housing (Though we didn't interact with any of those three other students, one of them was named Paco. He turned out to be quite a good rock climber, joining the climbing club and recruiting a friend here to join as well. That friend was the photographer who took the picture currently on my facebook profile). We split up for the first time at the end of this ride; Wes went to Parnell, the rest of us to Wellesley Student Apartments. It was time to start the semester.

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. 

Big Photo Update!

I've collected every drop of data I could squeeze from my SD card, done a little photoshopping, stolen Zach's camera, and surprised myself with my ability to recognize the location of almost every single otherwise unidentified picture. And now I present: the update list!

Glaciers
Wide Open Spaces
We Should Really Watch the Movies Again
Terra Bella
The Catlins
Neer seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with oriental women
Eat Local

The above have all gotten noticeable facelifts. This just about concludes my photo catch-up time and launches my rest-of-blog catch-up-time. In store are such fabulous things as: the end of the road trip! orientation! auckland! rangitoto! school! climbing! Each more exciting than the last, I can assure you.

The Mount Doom pictures I promised Lori:

I will reach this summit before I leave New Zealand.

More Pics

"The New Zealand Adventure" and "Raglan" have received some pixelicious updates. I also just noticed that Raglan is out of chronological order, but I don't know how to fix that. Sorry!

Now showing: "More Roadtripping" and "The South Island" for you viewing pleasure

Update: We're caught up to "Glaciers!" and the point I first filled my SD card. Trying to get up Milford Sound pics asap!

First Pictures Up!

And of course, now that I'm finally on the ball, the library is getting ready to close. Oh well. The iPhone pics turned out well and I'm happy to finally give you some visuals. I'll be here first thing tomorrow to give you even more. Cheers!

Edit: To save you some searching time, the only posts that got updated were "The Catlins" and "The Tallest Mountain in New Zealand"

Kate's Place

February 14

I woke up this morning after a surprisingly good sleep. I was totally dry, though it had presumably rained through the night. I found my sleeping pad to be wet underneath, so I dried it off before rolling it up. The foam worked very well for this: none of the water was absorbed in to make me cold or to make it harder to clean than a quick wipe with a paper towel. I'm happy I bought it. We went quickly this morning because we had to leave in time to catch the ferry back to the north island. We made more oatmeal, substituting boysenberry jam for the brown sugar we couldn't find. We packed up the tent as carefully as we could, trying not to get anything unnecessarily wet.

We reached Picton by 11:00 -- an hour and ten minutes before we were supposed to check in. We used our free time to pick up lunch at a Scottish bar and restaurant. We had wanted to go somewhere Scottish in Dunedin but found nothing. We figured this was a good substitute. We had our first view of the Olympics while we were waiting (5 km speed skating). It's strange to be totally missing big events like this. We also didn't see the Super Bowl and forgot about Valentine's Day until talking/texting people in the states. My fish & chips was tasty. I enjoyed it more with the extra tartar sauce I was not able to get in Queenstown. Back out in the streets of Picton, my bladder was not full enough to make me stop at what Ian, Wes, and Zach reported as "the Jetson's bathroom". It was apparently incredibly modern, entirely automated, and even spoke to you.

Checking in on the ferry went as smoothly as last time, even with our ticket (meant originally) for tomorrow. As we waited in the car to get on the boat, a man came by our car asking if we had heard of didymo and whether we had been in any lakes, streams, or rivers recently. Sidebar: Didymo, as far as I can tell, is a bug that infests a lot of bodies of water in New Zealand, making the water, at best, undrinkable. It spreads to new places by being carried on wet surfaces. The anti-didymo slogan on the sign we saw (several of which I had seen before) was "check, clean, dry". I'm not sure what the checking involves, but we are supposed to be careful to clean and dry everything we put in freshwater. I said yes to the former question and no to the latter because we had just seen a sign about it and reassured ourselves that our clothes had been washed since the last time we had been in a lake and that everything should be dry. In reality, we know very little about didymo and most certainly have been in lakes and rivers recently. But the man moved on before I realized that I should have answered differently. We'll just have to do some research ourselves next time we have internet, and be careful around freshwater from now on.

We waited about 20 minutes before being let on the boat, where we were parked outside this time. I took advantage of the down time on the ferry to blog (I seem to have fallen perpetually behind since our last trip on this boat). Though I never went outside, I had a good view through a glass wall in the back of the boat. Zach, in contrast, stayed out on the top deck for the entirety of the three hour ride. He looked a little windblown when we saw him on the way back to the car.

The car was not as we had left it. Exposed to the air for the whole journey, it had become crusted with salt. Windshield wipers + fluid cleared my view forward, but on the sides and in the back I had very little visibility until we reached a gas station. While Zach bought gas and I bought some macaroons, Wes cleaned the windows. With fuel, snacks, and a line of sight in all the relevant directions, we hit the road for Martinsborough (a destination chosen on the ferry (only slightly last minute)). We passed through Palmerston North and enjoyed the look of the city. Zach said John Cleese had made some disparaging remarks about the city, which prompted the residents to name the dump after him. I think we sided with the residents on this one.

Martinsborough is a small town stuffed to the brim with wineries. All of them were closed for the day when we pulled in, so we busied ourselves with finding accommodation for the night. The only tenting site in town charged $17/person, which meant we could have paid no less than $68 for a patch of grass for a night. Not impressed, we opted for the only other non-motel -- Kate's Place, a backpackers homestay where we were informed by Kate herself that the most important rule was that you make yourself at home. Though the night there was more expensive in absolute terms, it was hands down the better deal. Kate was a nice woman whose two vices were Evony and cigarettes, though neither interfered with her guests' stay. Our room had two bunk beds, each with a pillow, sheets, two blankets, and a reading light, which I found to be a nice touch. We also had our own towels, a bathroom, and several books. The common area had a big bookcase with much more reading material, Risk, Scrabble, and Puerto Rico. There were plenty of couches and chairs, a fully stocked kitchen (we even had access to the spices), and a dishwasher! The doors were always unlocked, the living room opened nicely to a patio outside, and we were given a very liberal license to relax: "Don't ask me if you can do something! I'll tell you [if you overstep your bounds]. But I'm very laid back."

And laid back she was. She didn't even make us pay when we accepted her room for the night. We picked up food for the night at the (thankfully still open) convenience store. The drive to the store deserves a mention because it took us around THE BIGGEST ROUNDABOUT we've ever seen. The town square in the center of Martinsborough is actually one giant roundabout with a full-fledged park in the middle. We decided to make omelettes for dinner, so we got eggs, tomatoes, onions, cheese, and bacon (bacon pieces, which really weren't too different from American bacon). Ian is big on having sides for dinner, so we also got a bag of potatoes.

We drove back to Kate's Place, parked in back for the first time, and brought our stuff in. She still didn't breathe a word about money, but was interested in our trip to New Zealand. She loved the idea of a semester here, but "Auckland wouldn't be my choice." Her choice would be Dunedin, where she went to school for a few years. She never got a degree, joking that this was because of the abundance of pubs, but never going in detail on the topic. We didn't press. She told us that most Kiwis don't think much of Auckland (interestingly, it occurs to me now that she never used the word "kiwi") because it's such a big, ugly city compared to the rest of the country. We started cooking, joined shortly by the German couple that was also staying the night (have I mentioned how everyone here seems to be German?). The meal turned out to be delicious. I like omelettes in general, but I really like the cheese we have found here: tasty cheddar. “Tasty” does not seem to be just a marketing label: we have found the same thing on multiple brands. It seems to be a legitimate type of cheese here, and we (even Ian, just a little bit) are fans.

I showered after dinner. The bathroom was just the right size for one person and the shower was excellent; the water was hot and the shower head was removable. This combination was a great one for my bug bites. Hot water sprayed directly on itchy areas is the most soothing treatment I know of and this one was no exception. I got out of the shower feeling great and ready to settle down for a board game. Everyone had been willing to do Risk, but Puerto Rico caught my attention. I saw and played it for the first time last summer in Windermere and had a good time doing it. I have found Risk kind of frustrating recently, so I persuaded the guys to give Puerto Rico a try. It's a somewhat complicated game and required a lot of time to set up, even more so because we were the first people to play Kate's copy of the game and three of us had never heard it before. I was worried I would be over my head explaining it, but eventually everyone got a grasp of it and enjoyed a close game. We went to bed a little before 1:00 feeling very content.

Last Night on the South Island

February 13
I was an early riser this morning, getting up at 6:30 to work on the blog and charge my electronics in the kitchen shelter. The three people who came and went in the time I was there made a total of one cup of tea for breakfast. The last guy, apparently on his way to go fishing, was intrigued with my netbook and asked me about getting one for his kids in school. Impressively, he even asked me what operating system I was running. I told him I thought it was a good deal and I enjoyed the portability. Happy with my answers, he wished me "cheers!" and went on his way.

I woke up the rest of the group at 8:00 -- I knew Ian's watch alarm would never do it, even though we keep using it for some reason. We ate our cereal with lukewarm milk and found it to be actually pretty good. It was not, however, filling enough, so Ian and I picked up some eggs in town. We got back to discover that the cereal had in fact been enough for Wes and Zach -- they hadn't eaten all of it, at least -- which meant that I ended up eating five bowls of cereal and about four eggs' worth of scrambled eggs. Pretty good-sized breakfast there.

After breakfast we remembered we had seen a zip line in the camp. We walked over to try it out, but quickly realized we would have no shot at it unless we were willing to pull children away. Deciding against that option, we packed up the tent and headed out. Our first stop today was Gore Bay. This was a nice little beach town with absolutely no grocery stores but a beautiful view. We made one PBJ each with the last of our supplies and spent a few minutes sitting in the sand enjoying the view. I waded into the very cold surf to soothe my overly bug-bitten feet. The ocean felt nice and I was ready to get back on the road.

We stopped for groceries -- essentially just boysenberry jam to restock our PBJ supply -- in a town called Cheviot. A little more driving brought us to Kaikoura, which was our destination for today. The area was marked, at least on the coast, by large rocky outcroppings jutting out into the sea, over which waves break dramatically. It was a very scenic drive and we pulled over at a lookout on top of the peninsula to take in the view and eat a second round of sandwiches. As we ate we remembered that this was the day Kyle and his grandfather would be returning to the US. We hadn't seen them since the drive from that very buggy lake.

We went to the grocery store in town to get some vegetables for the sauce for our pasta tonight, then drove down the peninsula to a trail we had read good things about. The section of coast the trail covers is also a seal colony, and we saw about 50 seals while we were walking. I wish we could trade a few of them for penguins, but it's still cool to see seals. At the highest part of the trek, where we saw the full size of the colony, we got a good view straight down into the water. A rock shelf extended about 100 m from shore, never deeper than 50 cm or so.
There were big cracks spider-webbing their way all over the shelf, the finest details of which we could easily make out through the shallow water. It was a cool pattern and easily the highlight of the trail -- or at least the part of the trail we walked. We didn't have time to make the full 3-hour hike, so we turned around early and drove in search of a camp site for the night.

There were disappointingly few options for a while. There was a closed hostel in town and a lot of non-vacant motels (not that we would have stayed in one anyway). We passed a "Lodge and Tree Houses" that sounded awesome but looked pricey. Nothing else came by for a while and we wondered whether we should turn around. But then we passed a sign for Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, and noticed some campers parked on the side of the road. We pulled in and things looked promising. There were a lot of tents and no registration signs. We passed a sign which introduced the area as a community project and which urged us not to litter, but, saying nothing else, confirmed our hopes that we had just found FREE CAMPING! We pulled off the road just before Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, the unrelated business which would not be receiving our business after doing such a lovely job of drawing our attention to the area.

We found a good spot by a tree that was a little sheltered from the wind and rain that looked imminent. I was immediately happy with the location; while Zach drove the car around from where we had pulled off, my job was to stay and hold the site. I did so by climbing the shelter tree -- a very climbable one, as it turns out -- and reveled in the sound and site of the ocean waves rolling over rocks, the green texture of the grass, and the simple pleasure of climbing a tree. We started cooking right away, hoping to beat the rain. Even though we have both a pot and a skillet, we only have one stove, which means we have to cook our pasta and our sauce separately. Zach always does the pasta first, since the sauce will hold its heat better and will effectively warm up the pasta. At Lake Paringa, I drained the water from the pasta while Zach started the sauce, but we both thought afterward that we should have left the water in as an insulator. So we tried just that tonight. Zach pulled the spaghetti off early because the water would continue to cook it after it was off the flame. Unfortunately, this effect was more pronounced than Zach expected and the pasta was a little overcooked. Live and learn, I guess.

It was still a good meal. The sauce was tasty -- red pepper, onion, and mushrooms cut into sevenths, even though I was kidding about that request. It was lightly raining as we ate, and had been since we started cooking. The water combined with the growing darkness made us want to get in the tent as quickly as possible. Wes, Zach, and I grabbed our headlamps and made final rainproofing adjustments to the tent. Ian braved the elements, walking out to the sea to do dishes. He looked epic cleaning our plates while the wind howled and water splashed all around him. By his reports, the experience felt as adventurous as it looked.

We scratched our plan to play caveman poker, as our "chips" were quite soaked and we didn't want to make the tent any wetter than it was. Instead we played a quick game of BS, which I haven't played in a while. Zach won because none of us were paying attention as he played his final card and simply kept going, not calling him on it until it was too late (he had, in fact, lied). Our prize for the poker game was going to be the right to sleep in the dry car. Since we didn't end up playing for it, we decided to give it to Ian, who does not have a sleeping pad and seemed to most want to be in the car. The rest of us unfurled our pads in the tent, giving us a nice dry surface, and went to sleep.

 Something from a tree I climbed got stuck in my eye. This was my attempt to find it.

Also, thanks for reading the blog Eric and Patricia ;)