Dunedin (Dunnerz) - student city and catching up with Becci!

So onwards to Dunedin. Dunedin would you know, is actually one of the first places settled in the South Island. It was also where the Scots landed, hence it's name Dunedin (the old name for Edinburgh). Dun = hill, so Edin-on-the-hill. Pretty good eh? It's still got alot of Scottish heritage, seen in the buildings and even the people and their accents. Everyone refers to people in Dunedin as crazy, with very rough accents (they roll their r's apparently), obviously descending from the Scottish accent. You can even see the Scottish genes in the locals (lots of ginger freckly people, and dark curly hair with freckles and pale skin colour).

Dunedin is a unique city and I would actually say it's my favourite 'city' in New Zealand so far. At only roughly 120,000 people, it's a small city on European terms but big for New Zealand, however it still had that 'South Island small-town-city' feel, nice and quiet! It felt like Bangor with it's hilly roads, old buildings and university lifestyle and it really took me back to the good old student days! There's even two beaches, St Kilda and Brighton beach and it has a really cool arty-scene, lots of street art - a bit like Melbourne in Australia. It's also home to New Zealands first and biggest University, The University of Otago, and the first and oldest Church, plus a super cute Train station!

We were staying at a super nice hostel, Geeky Gecko, which became our home for the 5 days we were there. The first thing we did when we arrived, went shopping as A. there was the 1st PAK'N'SAVE supermarket we'd seen on the South Island, and B. with the start of Autumn hitting pretty suddenly in temperature, we needed to buy some actual winter clothes and a coat! So I went long-sleeve top, leggings, gloves, coat and boots mad at Warehouse (I bought a bargain winter coat for only $12 at a 2nd hand clothing store - yay for being a student town!). We also decided to treat ourselves to Moules Frites Thai Curry as we had found a pak'n'save which is the cheapest place for Mussels.

Over our time there we decided to do some sight-seeing. We went and checked-out and walked up the Worlds Steepest Street, Baldwin Street, we walked through the beautiful Botanical Gardens and then walked back to town via the University. Which is very much like Bangor/Cambridge in it's architecture. We also walked via the student area which brought back so many memories seeing all the trashy houses with sofas outside and music blaring from inside, rubbish strewn around and alcohol bottles overflowing the bins. It was freshers week here that week so it was pumping with students!

We also checked out the Octagon; the centre of town, went on our own street art tour, checked out the oldest church, and just enjoyed spending our time chilling around town in parks. We also checked out the free museum there which was actually very interesting. They also have a Cadbury's factory but we decided not to pay $25 each for a tour. Our last day we met with Becci, our friend from Oz, and had a wonderful few hours catching up, especially as she had recently married her Nepalese fiance, and enjoyed hearing about her life living in Nepal. She was back for a while to escape life over there for a bit as it had become intense having to live with his parents with the culture and caste difference, and plus her sister was due to make her an auntie again so a good excuse for family time. We actually also met her again while we were touring the Catlins during our current WWOOFing placement, just randomly at Curio Bay...hang-on I know that girl, ah it's Becci! So weird but so cool!

Then it was time to venture off to another great HelpX/WWOOFing experience in Surat Bay,  the Catlins, with Jack and Ester, where we are currently managing a Hostel...pretty cool experience and great for future job prospects! More about that soon in my next blog!

Majestic Milford Sound and catching up with friends in Te Anau!

So we left Queenstown on the Stray Bus at the crack of dawn...it was still dark at 7am! The good thing was that as we were leaving Queenstown we got to see a magnificent sunrise over The Remarkables (a quite remarkable mountain range surrounding Queenstown).

It took us roughly 3 hours to reach Milford sound. We stopped on the way in Te Anau, (pronounced Tay-Arnew) where we tried to figure out how we were going to get to our boat cruise the next day. Basically, Stray only spend one night in Milford Sound at the off-the-beaten track location of Gunn's Camp. Today's weather forecast was rain, and so we decided to extend our stay to two nights, so that we could do our boat cruise the next day in the sunshine. However, we didn't realise Gunn's Camp is actually a good half hours drive from Milford sound, with no public buses on route, and only hitchhiking available to use (with a good hours walk to the main road) we realised we'd screwed up!

So. What we had decided after being told all this by the company of the boat cruise, was that maybe we could see when we get there, if there was availability to change to today with our Stray bus group at 3pm. The weather wasn't looking great but it was basically almost our only option, other than paying $120 for a round trip with a local pickup service. So we hoped and prayed on the hours journey from Te Anau to Milford sound that A. there would be space and B. the weather would clear up a little!

We stopped on the way once we got to Fiordland National Park for picture spots. Such as the mirror lake, and just before the tunnel heading through the mountain. Fiordland National Park is amazing, just huge towering peaks, some snow-capped, and loads of waterfalls (at least the rain was good for something). The thing is is that the west coast of New Zealand on the South Island and Fiordland National Park, is the wettest area ever, it's actually been dubbed the wettest place on earth (move over UK). Rainfall can reach 250 mm (10 in) during a span of 24 hours. On the forecasts all you ever see is maybe one or two days of sunshine, the rest is rain, so you have to be very lucky to see the sun! However, everyone we'd heard who'd done it in the rain, said that it was even more beautiful, because of the HUGE waterfalls it created through the sound.

Well, we definitely saw those, both driving through the National park and in Milford Sound itself. There were waterfalls everywhere! However, we were suuuuuuuper lucky...as when we arrived at the boat check-in, A. there was space and we only had to pay $10 for the price difference and B. the sun decided to burn through some of that cloud, and the rain had stopped - so we ended up having the best of both worlds; the joys of the waterfalls and a little blue sky! Woop! We unfortunately weren't able to see the top of Mitre Peak (the tall famous mountain at the entrance to Milford Sound), but I guess you can't be greedy when luck strikes. So we boarded our boat and went on our hour and a half cruise around the huuuuuge Milford Sound.

Milford Sound (also called Piopiotahi) is a Fiord (wrongly labelled a Sound), within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. Carved by glaciers during the ice age, it has been judged the world's top travel destination and labelled the '8th wonder of the world'. There are peaks up to 1200metres, some snowcapped, and there are many waterfalls. Seals and Dolphins (even Whales) can often be spotted - and we were lucky enough to spot a pod of Dolphins and some Seals lounging on the rocks in the sun. There is one waterfall, Lady Bowen Falls, which is actually 3 times higher than Niagara Falls, but due to the optical illusion presented by the huge peaks surrounding it, actually looks way smaller than it is. But boy is it powerful - we got very wet underneath it on our boat deck! The tour took us all around the Fiord on both sides and also out to the opening of the ocean where we saw the Dolphins. And thankfully the sun stayed out for the full hour and a half. We got some stunning pictures and even a little burnt.

Then we headed back on the Stray bus and towards Gunn's Camp, where we would stay for two nights, but there was no phone signal and no wifi, and limited electricity (from 6pm-10pm). So it was going to be a secluded couple of nights. But I was looking forward to it, time to catch up on some reading. We did a river walk the next day, had good Pasta, tried a bush walk but it got too slippery so we turned back, and then played some games, like battleship, trivial persuit etc, talked to people (yes we actually talked rather than everyone sitting on their phones) to bide away our day of rest. It was like going back to the old days when internet and phones didn't rule your life and it was great, so refreshing. The couple who owned the camp were also very lovely and had made the place very unique.

On the Monday we hopped off the Stray Bus in Te Anau for two nights where we did a few walks around the lake and ate amazing Pies at Miles Better Pies (the best pie I have ever tasted!) we had one a day while we were there. They had Thai curry, Satay Chicken, Venison, steak and bacon, steak and cheese, lamb and mint, you name it they had it; all freshly baked! We also met our friend from Sweden, Ivana, and her boyfriend Adrian while we were there, as they were working in a hotel there for the next couple of months. So we had a great catch up which was lovely and vowed we'd see each other again when they finished work. And in fact they are coming to stay with us at our hostel in the Catlin's next week!

Our next stop was Dunedin which we couldn't wait for! It was a whim decision as we'd been contacted on HelpX for a WWOOFing spot in the Catlins and had wanted to go to Steward Island before but the ferry was too expensive. So instead we decided to head to Dunedin as it was only an hour from the Catlins. So we booked our 4 nights there, and took the Intercity from Te Anau (we were going to use Stray but it meant spending a night in Invercargill and there was nothing to do there so we thought we'd save money). We'd heard lots about Dunedin and couldn't wait to go there...plus we'd contacted an old Kiwi friend from Australia (currently living in Nepal, but was from Dunedin) and found out she was actually HOME, so we were going to get to see her while we were there - amazing! Dunedin was awesome...more about that in the next blog.

Queenstown; we came, we conquered - it destroyed!

So I’ve not blogged in a while which is bad I know, but we’ve been super busy managing a hostel! So I’ll allow myself this one glitch!

So since I last blogged we visited Queenstown, adventure capital of New Zealand, also home to New Zealand’s best burger joint – FergBerger! We were pretty excited as we had our Canyon Swing booked for the 25^th February. We hopped on the Stray bus from Cromwell, stopping off at the AJ Hackett Bungy, Karawau Bridge jump – which is where the Bungy Jump was first invented by a Kiwi, AJ Hackett, and we watched some people jump. I tell you though, watching people do it was the first time in my life I’ve ever wanted to do a jump. It looked so cool, but I’m still not sure I could do one, unless I did a tandem one and someone forced me to go with them, or perhaps the Queenstown ledge bungy where you can get thrown off so you don’t have to jump yourself!

The night we arrived in Queenstown we met up with Guillaume again, it’s becoming a regular occurrence now! And we had a few drinks, we also got our $25 worth of drinks vouchers from Peter Pans, but we were a bit disappointed as it was promoted as ‘free drinks’  but actually it was just $25 worth of discounts, so like 25% off or half price drinks etc. We went into one bar where the voucher looked like it offered a free meal, idiot backpackers we are, didn’t realise it was actually a burger and drink for $25 rather than a voucher worth $25! It was a bloody good burger though, and huge so it was worth spending £50 for a meal! 

The next day was our Canyon Swing, it was a pretty wet and windy day so we didn’t have high hopes for it going ahead but when we got to the check-in they told us it looked ok. It was scheduled for 1pm. Before, we went for a short walk around Queenstown city centre and went for a $10 curry and rice! On the bus on the way there, we were getting pretty nervous, but we hid it by getting to know a few people going – one girl had won a ticket to do every bungy and every swing in New Zealand – however she did chicken out of the highest one The Nevis Bungy at 134m (I think I would too!).

When we got there we were told to check-in but it was on wind-hold (as its so high, its dangerous to operate in high winds), but we only had to wait half an hour before we got to walk along the wobbly bridge of no return! Once we got to the jump platform this is when we really were bricking it! Watching other people swing was probably one of the scariest things about it, as you see them suspended over the ground at 160m, and then they just drop, full force, free-fall, in all their screaming glory towards the ground! It’s a 70m free-fall, 300m arc swing at speeds of 150kmh! We saw around 7 people swing before us – tandem definitely dropped faster than the singles as you have more weight behind you. We were doing it tandem! 

So it came to our turn and we started freaking out, we told the guy we wanted no surprises, we wanted a countdown lol. Two couples had been surprised before – one had been made to put their arms around each other and as they were moving into position he dropped them, another had been made to smile at their friends camera and then dropped – it looked terrifying! They strapped us in, and then the terrifying part came – taking our feet off the platform and being suspended above the ground, waiting to drop! 

On a count of three, after smiling at the cameras, we dropped, it was awesome but breathtaking – I’m not even sure how I even managed to find the air to scream! Pierrick screamed like a girl too (haha), but only on the swing as he was too breathless on the drop. That feeling where your stomach feels like its in your lungs? Well multiply that by 2 (it’s stomach in the head feeling), for at least 3-4 seconds, and that’s how it felt to drop, it was worse than freefalling in a skydive!

After, we had a huge rush of adrenaline and I honestly could have done it again and again! I think next time we are in Queenstown I will do the other Canyon swing where you can chose how you fall (I really want to go down a slide and fall!) That night we got a FergBurger to celebrate – amazing! They are huge and delicious. Pierrick had the Big Al – basically the biggest you can get, and I had the Steak burger – full of juicy tender sirloin steak and onions! 

Then we decided to have a night on the town, where we met up with the couple we had met at the Canyon Swing, Guillaume and also Katrin (a girl we had met on one of our stray journeys from Germany) as she is working in Queenstown. We also saw Kookie (our previous stray driver). We had waaaaay too much to drink...think 2 vodka orange, desperados, half a bottle of wine each, a litre of beer for $10 in Cowboys (best bar ever, it even has a rodeo you can ride), plus shots and other drinks...needless to say, I don’t remember much of the evening and the next day I woke up with THE WORST HANGOVER EVERRRRRRRRR! 

I kid you not, from the moment I woke up at 11am, to the moment we went to bed, I was throwing up – I couldn’t even keep water down! I blame the litre of beer! Pierrick even went to get another Fergburger thinking the grease and a coke would help – which it normally does – nope, I got 3 bites in and up it came! What a waste of a Hawaiian Fergburger! We had to go shopping that evening too, in the pissing rain, while violently hungover, which was NOT fun. As the next day we were leaving for Milford Sound and the place we were staying for 2 nights was in the middle of nowhere. 

Needless to say, Queenstown destroyed me and my liver, and when we next go back, I want to actually see the place and do the walks, rather than just see the toilet bowl! Damn you Cowboys...

Hitch-Hiking to Wanaka and Skydive number two!

So, as I never got around to blogging about my first skydive in Australia (maybe one day I will write that 7 week trip up!) I thought I definitely need to write about the 2nd - and it was quite an adventurous journey there.

We had been WWOOFing for two weeks with Fay, sanding down her house and painting undercoat on, plus stripping wallpaper and other odd jobs like gardening at her daughters farm. We had the Saturday off before leaving on Sunday to our casual job on a local Vineyard in Alexandra, Central Otago.

So we asked if we could use the car to get to Wanaka to do our skydive, which was all good so we booked it. But the night before at 8pm Fay told us that she didn't think the car was safe enough to take as she had bumped it into a tree stump earlier that week and the bumper had half come off, which was fair enough. The only problem is we couldn't cancel the skydive as we would lose our money and we didn't know when to reschedule for. It was too late to try and arrange a lift there so our only option left was to wake up a little earlier and hitch hike there.

We had never hitched before so it was bound to either be a good experience or a bad one and we were hoping for a good one after the 2 weeks of bad weather.

In the morning we woke up super hyped and excited, made our signs to Wanaka and back to Roxburgh and then waiting on the road outside the house, thumbs up, signs out, boobs out and skirt hitched up (haha only joking). It didn't take long (around 10mins) for our first ride to pull up, James, a lovely dreadlocked dude from Dunedin. He was headed to Queenstown for a concert so he could take us to the junction in Cromwell which was a huge chunk of the journey done!

We made the normally hour long ride in record time (40mins) as he was a speed breaking lunatic but he could handle the roads and was a great character to chat to.

He dropped us at the junction in Cromwell and then we had our last leg to go - and it was only 10.30am! We walked a little further along to a fruit shop with a layby as there was another hitch-hiker and we didn't want to ruin his chances as he had all his bags too. There we waited for no more than 5-10mins when a van load of guys (about 10 of them) from Vanuatu came along and picked us up - lucky they had space for us! And drove us the 40mins to Wanaka. Again they were a lovely crew and we got to listen to some local music of theirs from home.

Once in Wanaka it was lunch time and so we went and got lunch from New World and had a picnic by the lake and ended up sharing our space with a lovely elderly Canadian couple who we had a fabulous chat with.

It was then...pickup time!! While our guide drove us to the airport we watched a safety video and how to prepare to jump out of the plane. In Australia they call it 'The banana' because you basically have to form the shape of a banana on the edge of the plane two seconds before jumping. Legs under the belly of the plane, hips out and head against the instructors left shoulder, hands holding onto your harness...then you jump! But to be honest you only literally have two seconds to do all of that so I have no idea if anyone actually ever really becomes a banana, more like a 'oh shit' and then your gone.

So we got to the skydive base where we signed in, paid for Pierrick's pictures (I didn't get pictures as it was too expensive and I already have them from Australia). We then had to change into our full body suits (they make you look like a condom its hilarious!) and wait until our names were called.

I was quite impressed as Pierrick still didn't feel nervous, or at least that's what he told me! We then had a lovely girl from Taiwan strap us into our harnesses and 10mins later, after the plane before us had landed, our instructors re-packed their parachutes and cane in to meet us...ready to go up again. You could tell they were tired - imagine every hour you have to go up, jump, then come down and do it all again.

Everyone in our plane headed off with their instructor, except me, who seemed to be missing an instructor, I had a little mini panic thinking I wasn't jumping with the same group as Pierrick but then good ol' Boris came running out apologising as he had needed the toilet - bless, I'd forgive him! He was from Serbia and had been jumping for yearsjump was actually excited it was my second jump as he said he could 'do more exciting things' this had my heart pumping. The only question I had was how to breathe during the freefall and he laughed saying many 2nd timers asked this as they normally find out in their first jump whether they found it hard to breathe, which for those of you who have seen my skydive video know that I had 60 seconds of sheer panic because I couldn't catch my breath lol its very entertaining - cheeks puffed out like a hamster struggling for breath with a 'oh fuck I'm going to pass out' expression! He told me that once he levels out and taps me on the shoulder I could either put my hands out in front of my face to shield the air flow, or breathe threw a teethy grin or my nose. So at least I had this down now, maybe I could actually enjoy the freefall this time.

So we started our ascent in the plane, I was in front of Pierrick, I kept checking he was OK and he was...until he saw the first two girls jump at 12,000ft, then he began to get nervous! The view from 15,000ft before we jumped though was amazing. You could not only see Lake Wanaka, the surrounding mountains and river, but also Queenstown lake which is over an hour away by car, and what they call here the Southern Alps - so many snow capped peaks! Mount Aspiring national park, Mount Cook (the highest peak of new Zealand) all the ski resorts (Treble Cone, Cardrona, Twin peaks, Coronet etc.) And you could also just about aee the coast line on either side. It was amazing! In fact, my lasting memory of this skydive will forever be the freefall I actually enjoyed, looking out over the lake with the snow capped mountains behind, it was quite literally breath-taking.

So when we had reached our jump height (15,000ft, 60 second freefall at 200kmh) it was time for the guy in front of me, then me to jump (Pierrick was unfortunately last, afterwards he told me he was shit-scared when we started seeing everyone else sit on the edge and then just disapeer, and it says its all in his photos!)

So we took off our oxygen masks (they gave us these at 12,000ft for some reason (we didn't have this in Australia), Boris quickly adjusted my harness, we put our goggles in place and our awful hats, which completed the condom look, and then banana-ed! Just before we shuffled down to the door, Boris shouted in my ear that the exciting thing was he was going to flip me loads (more than first timers) before we levelled out for the freefall. So I was suddenly excited-nervous. And let me tell you he certainly flipped me! The only feeling I can describe the fall out of the plane, is complete weightlessness, Pierrick said it was like a bungy, that feeling when you are falling in your dreams except this time you don't wake up, you live it out. You have no idea which way is down as most of the time you just see sky when you flip, and your heart goes into your throat, your stomach into you lungs and you momentarily forget how to breathe. It really is the most surreal feeling but somehow that adrenaline burst just keeps you going back to have that feeling again and again (well for me its like that). Boris must of flipped us around 4-5 times, normally you only flip once or twice if you are a newbie, and then he levelled us out. He then, bless him, put his hands in front of my face to block the air for me to breathe, but far enough away so I could still see the view, and my God, it helped sooooo much! I actually breathed normally the whole 60 seconds and I just remember laughing and admiring the amazing view, I took a mental note to snapshot this moment and I still can see the picture in my mind, the lake out in front of me, the snowcapped mountains to my right, the turquoise river beneath me and Queenstown lake and the hills/ski resorts to my left. The rush of the freefall ends when the parachute comes out and then you just float your way down to the ground. They let you have a go on the ropes sometimes, but even though it was a hot day, the wind draft was crazy so we lost height pretty quickly and Boris had to control the parachute so we didn't crash into the other jumpers (one went right beneath us, my feet skimmed their parachute). I also remember seeing Pierrick free falling as our parachute opened, it was pretty cool knowing he was currently shitting his pants lol.

Unfortunately a skydive is over before you know it - within 5-10mins, especially when the wind is not on your side. So our landing position was legs up and slide in on your bum!

Once down I waited for Pierrick to land before grabbing a quick photo from his photographer, then we went inside, took our gear off and had fun watching his picture slideshow - hilarious!

The trickiest part was yet to come - the bitch hike back to Roxburgh. We decided to pitch outside the airport as there was no point going back into Wanaka, as the airport was on the way to Cromwell.

It took us 1.5 hours in the blazing heat to get our first ride...and that was with the skydive pickup guide who had also picked up 3 other hitch hikers from Wanaka and was headed to Luggate on his way home, so be could drop us there, which was at least 5 mins up the road!

Then when we got out in Luggate an American guy left the pub opposite us and seeing we were about to put up our sign, called out an offered us a lift to Cromwell - woo! He was a lovely guy from New York who had been here for 9 months already and was going home soon. It turned out he didn't really like the look of Cromwell to spend the night in so decided to head to Alexandra and took us with him...even better that was only half hour from Roxburgh. Bless him we were so thankful!

We then walked to the bridge on the road to Roxburgh and it only took us another 15mins to find a lift with a high school girl, her mother and her brother who were all on their way back to down near Invercargill from a motorbike event. They were lovely and we were chatting so much we almost missed our stop!

Needless to say our first day trip hitch hike was a success and if we ever need to get somewhere short-distance without a car again, we could definitely do it. We both came back exhausted after the adrenaline rush ended and we spent the evening laughing our heads off at Pierrick's pictures. Well we had at least finally done our skydive, something we both, Pierrick especially, had been looking forward to doing for over a year! Woohoo, success! Enjoy laughing at some classic pictures!

20km Tongariro Volcanic Alpine Crossing - like being on Mars!

So the day started before sunrise, 5am wakeup with everyone in our room groaning. On the bus by 6am hot-footing it out of Whakahoro for an hour and a half journey back to Tongariro National Park. It was freezing cold when we left but it was THE most gorgeous day by far and everyone kept telling us how lucky we all were and that it's very rare to get a day like today. In fact Stijn from our East Bro Tour was coming back to do it with us today because when they went a week ago it snowed and they couldn't see anything! That's how versatile the weather is here!

So, the Tongariro National Park, is the oldest national park in New Zealand, (established in 1887) the fourth National Park in the world, and a UNESCO world heritage site. There are 3 active volcanoes within the centre of the Park; Ruapehu (also known as Whakapapa - Fuck-a-papa, which is a ski resort), Ngauruhoe (also known as Mt Doom from lord of the rings and is magnificent) and Tongariro, which has a flat summit. The Alpine crossing is known as one of the best day hikes in the world and it really is stunning! You feel like you are on another planet while walking over such a diverse terrain. Mt Ruapehu last erupted in 2006/7 and since then there have been several volcanic activity warnings, the last one being 2012 - crazy huh considering its a ski resort?!

So we arrived at the place where we had to register and pay our transfer tickets, we had already paid so just presented our voucher. They also check you have the appropriate attire on - hat, suncream, at least 2 litres of water each, appropriate footwear for the hike you were doing (if you were climbing the volcanoes they were pretty serious about this as there are loose rocks and falling boulders!) They also don't allow you to hike unless you match their checklist - fair enough!

So then we all hopped on the bus at 8.30 and were driven 20minutes to the start of the hike. Then we were left to our own devises! We were given around 7 hours to complete the trek. We started at 9am and our bus picked us up at 5.30pm, if you were late, you have to pay $200 for the priviledge!! Better not be late guys! Also if you wanted to summit the volcanoes you had to do this within the same amount of time, considering it took between 2-3 hours extra there and back you ha ve to be a pretty fit and speedy climber to complete it all in 7-8hours! Needless to say, we skipped on that and just did the main walk, which was hard enough in itself let alone climbing loose rocks and dodging falling boulders as well! Some people from our group summites Mt Doom but they came back with stubbed toes and hellish stories to compensate lol.

So it was me, Pierrick, Stijn (the guy who came back for round two - crazy!) Yosuke (yos-kay) from Tokyo, and Roberto from Italy. We also managed to catch up with Hester from Netherlands, later down the trek (yay a girl for companionship).

The first part of the trek led us through volcanic bush and was a pretty easy hike, we then got to slightly rougher terrain - old Lava fields turned into volcanic rock - rough and rugged and of medium scope to hike up. Then...it got to the Devils Stairs...well, let me tell you they were not named lightly, they really were the devil!

Just before this we caught up with Hester and luckily I had a girl with the same ability as me, guys being guys just went off ahead and didn't look back but us girls stuck together!! It reminded me of the Gibbon Experience with another Dutch girl Miaake when we were in Laos - those Dutch girls are awesome hiking buddies! Love yas.

We all had to have several stops along the way up because even though we only climbed 1000 metres, it was a bloody steep climb and quite rugged - obviously because your climbing up a bloody volcanic valley!

At the top held magnificent views over the north island and even into the south island where in the distance you could see the highest mountain in New Zealand - Mt Cook standing at over 5000 metres tall. That's how clear and beautiful this day was guys! It was 28 degrees back on the ground but due to the wind up top probably plummeted around 10-15 degrees so there's me in my bikini under my top with shorts on and a jacket on top of a bloody volcano in piercing winds! But it wasn't too cold, at least I wasn't climbing this volcano in flip flops! Haha.

By the time we reached the plateau at the bottom of Mt Doom we were already about an hour and a half in and about one hour from being half way! It was the next part to come - the halfway point when you can usually sigh a huge sigh of relief that was the goddamn hardest part!! We stopped off partway to have a snack - they tell you bring more than just enough food, because what you think is enough food, is never enough! And they were right, so glad we prepared well and came with like 4 sandwiches, Kiwi fruits, biscuits, crisps etc. It was well needed, even after an eggs, bread and porridge trekkers breakfast!

At this point we passed what was called the red crater and it really did feel like you were walking on Mars! And then the real climb came! To reach the highest point in the trek you basically had to rock climb up loose rocks and huge boulders - the was even rope at some points to pull yourself up! It was horrendous and the poor people who were doing it the opposite way were falling down and slipping so often...little did we know though that at the top, on the way down the other side...it was our fecking turn!!

It was literally what I like to call, rock and sand boarding. All you could do was run, surf and hope that you slide rather than fall, it was practically a 70% incline. The amount of sand and rocks in your shoes after was hilarious - I fell on my arse twice and Hester fell too. The guys were way ahead as always. It was a good solid half hour descent to the crater lakes or Sulphur lakes (Emerald lakes they were called) which were magnificent again - solid turquoise, green and duck-egg blue colours and ahead was a massive blue blue lake! We took tons of pictures obviously then continued down this AWFUL slip and slide route. It acutally was pretty funny taking beta on who was going to fall next. Then it was straight across another plateau to the massive blue lake where you saw the snow capped Mt Ruapehu behind the demonic Mt Doom.

We had lunch here, by now we were just over half way but didn't know that the longest part was yet to come. We'd been trekking for 4 hours and had at least another two to go.

So the last leg was around 10km. It took us round the side of a mountain where you had views of lake Taupo just below as it was super close to the Tongariro National Park. And then the route descended down to the end carpark and took you through some Forrest. But my God, it took FOREVER!! Winding then going up to come down again then winding round and round and round! Just get me down this goddamn volcano! We stopped at the Campsite area for another quick break and then the final 6km started which was the worst and pretty boring as most of it is through volcanic bush. Nothing to see and round every corner you kept thinking...this is it, this is the end...nope another 1km maybe? Nope, 15mins maybe? NOPE! Omg it was AWFUL especially when by this point you are tired and hungry and all your water is gone and you just want to sit down and not walk ever again.

Eventually at 4.15pm we FINISHED!! We had completed Tongariro in just over 6 hours - woohoo! But we had missed the early bus by a few minutes...boo! So we had a good hour before our bus would come to collect us so we all sat on some grass chilling and catching a few others from our group and swapped stories - apparently a few people had nasty falls up there breaking arms etc - happens every day the Park rangers say! Not from our group though. But we did have two injuries, one a very swollen ankle and the other was Stijns busted toe! I pulled the ligaments/muscles behind one of my knees but after a few days it died down.

When the bus came one of the girls had managed to get lost and wasn't back yet. She had tried to climb the summit of Mt Doom but her and another girl had turned around and not been seen since. Turns out the girl she was with had called to get a pickup from the start as she couldn't complete it and she had continued on but taken a bit longer to come back so she ended up coming back on another bus that was waiting for her. Our bus driver gave us a load of ice cold beers to celebrate the end of our hike and then we were driven back to the hostel.

We then had showers, dinner and played a few round of card games before calling it a nnight. Needless to say we were all pretty shattered and achy! Next stop; Wellington!