It's Chriiiiissstmaaaassss! It began with more sunshine than snow and a Skype to Ma and Pa. We then decided we wanted food and we didn't really have anything lunch-wise in our food bags, so we went in search of something open as Taupo was DEAD, like a ghost town!
We thought what most westerners would think, the one place you can rely on to be open everyday of the year...McDonalds! However, it turns out in Taupo, McDonalds, Burger King and KFC all actually shut on Christmas day! Boooo the only places open were an expensive burger place, a cafe, Subway and a kebab shop...so we went and had a Christmas Kebab, definitely something I've never had on Christmas day before!!
We then saw our Stray Bus with our new driver so double checked she was picking us all up at YHA as for us to walk down to Base Hostel it would have killed us with all our bags. And until 1pm came around we just chilled at the Hostel.
The two German girls who were in our room at YHA were coming on the bus with us so we got chatting to them and after watching the Stray bus pass us 3 times, Possum (our driver) finally found us!
It was then a short drive out of Taupo to Tongariro National Park where Possum showed us what we would be climbing on the 27th - volcanoes gallore. The landscape changed dramatically from Taupo, new Zealand's biggest lake the size of Singapore and lush green hills, to rough Volcanic valley landscape devoid of any greenery!
We then made our way towards Whakahoro (Fuck-a-horo) which was another hour away, in the middle of nowhere - in fact, hardly any Kiwi's even know of the place! It's a community of around 20 people with farms that have banded together to create a tourism conservation project.
The roads were gravel roads, bumpy and often subject to landslides but luckily we didn't experience any of those! Once we arrived we were astounded by the tranquility of it...a few lodges in amongst huge green hills with paddocks of gorgeous horses and even a llama or as Kiwi's call it a 'Shammel' - sheep mixed with camel.
We picked out our dorm rooms in the lodge we had been allocated and then it was basically time to eat, drink and party in the wilderness! We had treated ourselves to a Christmas day rump steak, with prawns in a creamy garlic sauce and homemade fries. Though the fries were more mushy fried potatoes as the oven didn't work very well! But the owner came and handed us all free beers and champagne to get the party started - well its Christmas after all eh?!
So the night continued in this fashion until around 7-8pm when Possum brought out the vodka punch! Then it all started going pwte tong and everyone got pretty wasted, in fact we were all pretty far gone due to the bottles of vodka more than fruit juice in the punch, before the beautiful full moon even graced the night sky!! Music was played, dancing was had, me and Pierrick had an enlightening conversation with the owner who was a total hill billy but amazing guy about being self sustainable in New Zealand and how hunting for meat can be a life changing thing especially when like in Whakahoro they use every part of the animal and its also pest control - they have alot of mountain goats who kill off alot of native trees etc so they kill them for meat to keep them under control. Any scraps go to the dogs, and they also use the meat for bait in the animal traps to kill possum's, stoats etc who attack local wildlife and native birds. It was a very interesting talk and he even offered to take us hunting for free but we knew this wouldn't happen unless we came back one day.
We had alot of fun with the animal skulls and chainsaws by the fire and me and the Irish guy Georaid had a good old sing song towards the end of the night before we all went to bed around 2.30am. I however couldn't go to bed without gorging on some leftover Christmas ham and cake!
* * *
The next day was a long morning of hungover grumbles in our room. People getting up and going back to bed. Walking into the kitchen the next morning was hilarious, it was like the hungover walking dead, Stray Zombies! There were activities planned for today and some poor souls had to be up for 9am for a 3hour horse trek! I was going to do it but decided against it as the day day before doing a 20km hike is a sore ass I would not want! So instead opted for the river Kayaking with Pierrick. This luckily didn't start until 1.30pm so we had a few hours to cure the hangovers.
At 1.30pm we were taken by dirt buggy up to the start of the Kayaking tour where we were dropped on the river and left to kayak down 10km at our own pace. There were a few rapids to tackle along the way but they were pretty tame.
It was a gorgeous day and we spent around 2-2 1/2 hours paddling down the river but because of the strong current you sometimes didn't even need to paddle. We stopped off along the way with others in our group to have a swim on a beachy area of the river with a waterfall etc and we had tons of fun floating in our lifejackets with the current down river a little before walking back up to do it again. There were even little hot water pools!
On the way back we got a jet boat ride up to the start and the owner of the business invited us all back to his awesome house with awesome views for a beer/coffee and homemade gingerbread biscuits. The guys had fun with an axe throwing competition and then we headed back to the lodge.
It was then dinner time (Chicken Thai Red Curry for us!) Meat is a treat when you backpack! And then it was preparing lunches and our daysacks for our looking hike tomorrow, it was a 5am wakeup call to go walk on Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings, some of new Zealand's most active volcanic land!
We thought what most westerners would think, the one place you can rely on to be open everyday of the year...McDonalds! However, it turns out in Taupo, McDonalds, Burger King and KFC all actually shut on Christmas day! Boooo the only places open were an expensive burger place, a cafe, Subway and a kebab shop...so we went and had a Christmas Kebab, definitely something I've never had on Christmas day before!!
We then saw our Stray Bus with our new driver so double checked she was picking us all up at YHA as for us to walk down to Base Hostel it would have killed us with all our bags. And until 1pm came around we just chilled at the Hostel.
The two German girls who were in our room at YHA were coming on the bus with us so we got chatting to them and after watching the Stray bus pass us 3 times, Possum (our driver) finally found us!
It was then a short drive out of Taupo to Tongariro National Park where Possum showed us what we would be climbing on the 27th - volcanoes gallore. The landscape changed dramatically from Taupo, new Zealand's biggest lake the size of Singapore and lush green hills, to rough Volcanic valley landscape devoid of any greenery!
We then made our way towards Whakahoro (Fuck-a-horo) which was another hour away, in the middle of nowhere - in fact, hardly any Kiwi's even know of the place! It's a community of around 20 people with farms that have banded together to create a tourism conservation project.
The roads were gravel roads, bumpy and often subject to landslides but luckily we didn't experience any of those! Once we arrived we were astounded by the tranquility of it...a few lodges in amongst huge green hills with paddocks of gorgeous horses and even a llama or as Kiwi's call it a 'Shammel' - sheep mixed with camel.
We picked out our dorm rooms in the lodge we had been allocated and then it was basically time to eat, drink and party in the wilderness! We had treated ourselves to a Christmas day rump steak, with prawns in a creamy garlic sauce and homemade fries. Though the fries were more mushy fried potatoes as the oven didn't work very well! But the owner came and handed us all free beers and champagne to get the party started - well its Christmas after all eh?!
So the night continued in this fashion until around 7-8pm when Possum brought out the vodka punch! Then it all started going pwte tong and everyone got pretty wasted, in fact we were all pretty far gone due to the bottles of vodka more than fruit juice in the punch, before the beautiful full moon even graced the night sky!! Music was played, dancing was had, me and Pierrick had an enlightening conversation with the owner who was a total hill billy but amazing guy about being self sustainable in New Zealand and how hunting for meat can be a life changing thing especially when like in Whakahoro they use every part of the animal and its also pest control - they have alot of mountain goats who kill off alot of native trees etc so they kill them for meat to keep them under control. Any scraps go to the dogs, and they also use the meat for bait in the animal traps to kill possum's, stoats etc who attack local wildlife and native birds. It was a very interesting talk and he even offered to take us hunting for free but we knew this wouldn't happen unless we came back one day.
We had alot of fun with the animal skulls and chainsaws by the fire and me and the Irish guy Georaid had a good old sing song towards the end of the night before we all went to bed around 2.30am. I however couldn't go to bed without gorging on some leftover Christmas ham and cake!
* * *
The next day was a long morning of hungover grumbles in our room. People getting up and going back to bed. Walking into the kitchen the next morning was hilarious, it was like the hungover walking dead, Stray Zombies! There were activities planned for today and some poor souls had to be up for 9am for a 3hour horse trek! I was going to do it but decided against it as the day day before doing a 20km hike is a sore ass I would not want! So instead opted for the river Kayaking with Pierrick. This luckily didn't start until 1.30pm so we had a few hours to cure the hangovers.
At 1.30pm we were taken by dirt buggy up to the start of the Kayaking tour where we were dropped on the river and left to kayak down 10km at our own pace. There were a few rapids to tackle along the way but they were pretty tame.
It was a gorgeous day and we spent around 2-2 1/2 hours paddling down the river but because of the strong current you sometimes didn't even need to paddle. We stopped off along the way with others in our group to have a swim on a beachy area of the river with a waterfall etc and we had tons of fun floating in our lifejackets with the current down river a little before walking back up to do it again. There were even little hot water pools!
On the way back we got a jet boat ride up to the start and the owner of the business invited us all back to his awesome house with awesome views for a beer/coffee and homemade gingerbread biscuits. The guys had fun with an axe throwing competition and then we headed back to the lodge.
It was then dinner time (Chicken Thai Red Curry for us!) Meat is a treat when you backpack! And then it was preparing lunches and our daysacks for our looking hike tomorrow, it was a 5am wakeup call to go walk on Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings, some of new Zealand's most active volcanic land!
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