3/16 - Waikaremoana, Rotorua, Hamilton

In the early morning, I hiked out of Waikaremoana. The lake was quiet, with few birds stirring, which was a bit disappointing. I arrived at the car around 11am, and began driving toward Rotorua, a town known for its volcanic (and sulphurous smelling) hot springs, along about 90 miles of gravel road. It was slow going, and Tolstoy again kept me company. I arrived in Rotorua around lunch time and went to a "cafe" recommended by Lonely Planet. I apparently didn't read the entry closely, because it turned out to be a high-end cafe restaurant. This turned out to be a fortuitous mistake, as I ended up having perhaps the absolute best waffle with fruit compote I have ever had!

I then spent a good deal of time on the Internet. I needed to write to Brown to accept their offer of admission, as well as try to set up a place to stay in Sydney. The Australian portion of my trip has the most potential for couchsurfing, so I really needed to get a start on it.

I then, because of my flight to Christchurch, needed to head up to Hamilton, a town about 1:30 south of Auckland at which I had set up a hostel stay. My silly flight means that I have to drive to Hamilton, get set up into the hostel, and then leave the hostel around 2:30am, so that I can drive up to Auckland for my 6:40am flight in plenty of time. Grrr! More and more silly!

The drive went off without incident - well, except for getting lost in Hamilton trying to find the highway to Auckland at 3am...

3/15 - Brown and Waikaremoana

In the morning I woke up really early NZ tine to check the status of my Brown Med School application. To my surprise and great joy the result was in: accepted!!! What was supposed to be a short Internet session then turned into a series of excited chats with friends and family. Thanks so much to all the folks who gave their congratulations!

Afterward, I headed out to the Lake. It turned out to be a much longer drive than I thought it would, and much of it over gravel roads. I arrived at 1:05 to the visitor center, right when the attendant was going to lunch. After waiting to 1:30, I bought a ticket for one of the campgrounds, and headed down another dusty gravel road to the trail head. Even though the driving has been long, I haven't minded much since I have War and Peace by Tolstoy on my iPod. My one concern now is that I've been driving so much lately that I'm eating away large chunks of even that titanic novel. At this rate I'll probably be finished with it prior to leaving NZ! All 51 CDs worth! Today I was getting into the abandonment and burning of Moscow to Napolean's army during the War of 1812. Ah, Tolstoy, how I love thee!

Finally, the dusty road came to the trail head, and I started the hike. It turned out that the section I chose to do was the relatively flat area (good) that didn't really have any of the views of the more vertical part (not as good). The path mostly hugged the lake shore, and at one point a bunch of wild pigs ran across my path out of the thick underbrush not 10 feet from me! I was a bit spooked, not only from startling them, but also because it seemed to be a momma pig and her piglets, one of whom didn't follow momma when she ran and became separated. I certainly didn't want to come in between them, so hurried through that section of trail. 

At the first hut I came to, I ran into two Finnish geologists who were taking a quick trip through the north island before heading home where the woman, Anna, was starting a new job. They were quite fun to talk to and I ended up spending a couple of hours sitting and chatting with them. 

Finally, I headed on to my hut/campground area, about 2 hours down the trail. Along the way I had pass next to an area of the lake cordoned off by an electric fence. This was due to an attempt to re-introduce brown kiwis to the lake area. Kiwis are a nocturnal, flightless bird that have large feet with big claws. They are in a family of birds that included the giant moa, a now-extinct bird that rivaled the ostrich in size. Kiwi young are often killed by stoats, brought in the 1860s to control rabbits (in turn introduced in the early 19th century for sport hunting...ugh!) and rats, brought by sailors.

I arrived at the campsite shortly before dark and set up my hammock tent. I then went to the hut and played scrabble with some hikers from Australia on a guided tour of the Lake. 

The stars were out in abundance when I turned into my tent, including the prominent southern cross. I fell asleep listening to the calls of the kiwis, mingled with those of the endemic swans and ducks on the Lake. So peaceful.

3/14 - Napier Wine

This morning I said a leisurely goodbye to Johanna, which included helping her catch and clip the wings on her 5 chickens. It has been really interesting staying with Johanna. She has been so kind, while at the same time she strikes me as rather gruff. We talked about her grandchildren, and she stated that while she wanted to love them all equally, she found that she just really didn't like one of them - her grandson - because "he's completely wild. She mostly blamed her son for this, and the lack of clear boundaries he and hos wife give the boy. In some ways, her gruff and diagnostic approach applied to her family reminds me of other nurses I have met in my career. It makes me wonder if this is all that nurses have in common.

After saying goodbye, I drove Austin up to Taupo, a town on my way over to the east coast city of Napier. Napier had a really big earthquake back in 1931 which leveled its downtown. When it was re-built it primarily engaged the popular style of the time - art deco. Its buildings then are now low-rise and charming with art deco facades with lightning bolts and stars on them. Before walking around the town much, I signed myself up for the other thing Napier is famous for: its wine tours! I took a half day tour of four wineries, getting driven about by a really cute kiwi named Sasha (pictured below). I think I must have tried 40 wines, including some that I'd never heard of, e.g. Gewertsgemuller, and discovered that of the various whites I tried, I most enjoyed several Chardonnays, which were smooth, rich, and buttery. Sadly, many of the wineries in NZ are smaller, and do not distribute overseas.

At the end of the tour, we had a cheese plate, accompanied by fresh figs, that had just ripened at the third winery we visited. Yum!

After getting back, I took a walk around the town and made plans for the next day. I'm limited by having to return to Auckland for my flight down to Christchurch on the south island. If I had it go do over, I wouldn't have bought a plane ticket to Christchurch, instead paying extra for a ferry ticket to the south island from Wellington. The car would have cost a bit more, dropping off at a different city from pick up, but it would have given me more freedom to go to the souls island earlier. Also, the ferry is supposed to be beautiful. Oh well. Next time!

Instead, I chose to drive a bit north to another one of NZ's "Great Walks", the Waikaramoana Lake Track. Here's to hoping that it lives up to its hype.

3/13 - Tongariro Alpine Crossing

To say that the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is beautiful is not quite the right way to put it. This highly active volcanic area is a blasted and barren landscape, looking like something akin to a lunar or Martian landscape than anything on earth. And when the mists rise, it's easy to see why Peter Jackson chose this devastated landscape to be site of the Black Land of Mordor in his Lord of the Rings movies. Walking up the sharp inclines and over the desolate boulders, one can easily imagine walking with Frodo and Sam on the final stage of their journey. One German hiker propped up a Mars bar and took a picture of it in the foreground of the landscape and joked "a little piece of Mars" as I walked by him.

On this hike, I confirmed something I had a vague sense of prior to coming to New Zealand, namely, I love climbing up steep inclines on hikes. I almost couldn't help skipping up the steps that many of the other hikers took slowly, one at a time. There's something joyful about moving my body energetically upwards in space. I found myself singing Nightingale's song Hills under my breath while ascending. My one regret on the hike is that going uphill so quickly meant that I, without realizing it, jumped way ahead of my scheduled finish time. The 19.4km (12 mile) track is supposed to take around 7-8 hours. I finished in 4. My not realizing I was well ahead of my finish time meant that when I passed a side trip up the steep incline of Mount Ngauruhoe, the LotR movie Mt Doom, I thought I wouldn't have time, so skipped it.

After traversing the crossing so quickly, I decided to try to save some money by hitchhiking back to the starting point. There's a shuttle service back, but it cost NZ$25. I'm trying to keep my budget under $100 US a day, and the car along is costing me around $40 already. I walked the 1km down to the main road, but it turned out to be almost empty of traffic. Finally, I was able to catch a ride from two hikers who had parked their car at the exit, then taken a 6am shuttle to the starting point. (That would have been waaay too much planning for me!) they took me down to the intersection of routes 46 and 47, where (I hoped) there would be more cars. There were, and within about 10 minutes I received a ride from a lovely elderly kiwi couple who were "out for a drive". They knew of the crossing, but had never done it. The woman had grown up in Scotland, then moved to New Zealand as a young adult. The three of us chatted about their lives, LotR (I wanted to know if it was a big deal to kiwis (it wasn't), and the difficulty pronouncing Maori names (like Ngauruhoe - hint: the  "g" is silent). Since they weren't headed anywhere in particular, they decided to make the beginning of the crossing their destination, and drove me the rest of the way.

After getting the car, I repaid my karmic debt by giving two hikers a ride back to the ending car park. They were two young computer programmers from the Czech Republic. They were very pleasant and enthusiastic, recommending other places on the North Island to visit.

I then returned to the car park and waited for Austin, another couchsurfer who stayed with my host, Johanna, who did the crossing that day. We had started out together in the morning, I gave him a ride from Johanna's, but it quickly becMe apparent that we hiked at quite different speeds. He was also carrying a SLR camera and a tripod, and wanted to stop a bunch of times to take photos. He showed up at hour 8, and we drove together back to town to buy groceries to cook dinner for Johanna. I really wanted to try a risotto again, since this grocery actually had the right ingredients, namely aborrio rice and Parmesan cheese! Austin (who incidentally went to school at the Berklee school of music for sound recording technology, and now lives and works in Austin, Texas) was completely wiped out after the hike, and went up to take a nap, which ended up lasting several hours - such that he didn't help out on dinner (which was fine). Johanna and I had a nice chat. She is 65, Belgian born, and emigrated to New Zealand when she was a young adult. She took up nursing, and now is semi-retired, though she still tales on home-care clients. I really enjoyed her manner, which struck me as a combination of no-nonsense and experimental - she had just acquired 5 chickens, and for her 60th birthday she had gone skydiving. The risotto was ready and tasted smashing, if I do say so myself. I stayed up for a bit to check Internet, but then went to bed early after a wonderfully full day.

3/12 - Giant Trees on the journey to Turangi

Today I set myself up for another long drive. I want to walk on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing tomorrow, and so I had set up a couchsurf in Turangi, a little town near the Tongariro National Park. This meant that I needed to make it all the way down, through Auckland, and a good ways beyond by a reasonable time, so that my host didn't have to wait up for me. I got a fairly early start out of Hokianga, but I wanted to stop along the way to see some of the remnants of the ancient Kauri forests, trees rumored to rival the Sequoias and Redwoods in size and, especially, girth.

I drove south of Opanani, and stopped at the small pull-offs to see some of the biggest trees. These forests used to cover the entirety of Northland prior to the arrival of the Europeans. But now there are only a few areas that have preserved even a small number of the trees, much less and entire forest of them. Not only valued for their timber, but also having many shallow and delicate root systems, these trees were quickly destroyed. I tried to capture their majesty in my pictures.

I made my long driving day even longer by realizing that I had forgotten my head-lamp at Matt's mum's in Auckland. After retrieving it, I continued south, but didn't reach my destination until around 8:30pm, even though I didn't stop anywhere else along the way. What a long driving day. Good thing the next couple of days won't have nearly as  much car time!

3/11 - Cape Reinga, the public toilet, and Treehouse

I woke up this morning with a somewhat fuzzy plan to drive to what the New Zealanders call Northland, the area of the North Island to the north of Auckland. With climes ever more mild as one goes north, there are many beaches and sights to see, but many seem a bit too touristy for this boy. I tend to go for things a little off the beaten path. I had the Bay of Islands recommended to me, but it seemed quite tourist heavy. Day cruises among the islands, swimming with dolphins, all for a pretty penny, did not really appeal. So even though it was significantly further away, I decided to try to go all the way up to the tip of the North Island, a place called Cape Reinga. The cape is known as the traditional jumping off point of the souls of the dead Maori to paradise. There is a tree there sacred to the Maori, upon whose roots the souls of the dead are supposed to slide down to enter the sea of the next world. 

I arrived after a long car trip to a brilliantly clear day, and began walking down to the Cape from the car park. The point just out in the water is also significant because of the meeting of two bodies of water - the Tasman Sea, the body of water between New Zealand and Australia, and the South Pacific. The waters churn together, forming difficult currents and apparently, in rough weather, whirlpools. There are three islands to the north just visible on the horizon. Apparently a Maori chief swam there and named them the "Out of Breath" islands, since he was quite out of breath upon reaching them. Initially I thought this would be because he had swum 6 or 7 miles, since the islands were visible. It turned out that I was off by roughly a factor of 10. The islands were about 60 miles away. "Out of Breath", indeed!

On the way to the Cape, I stopped in a village called Kawakawa, close to where my favorite architect ever Friedensreich Hundertwasser 
lived out the end of his life. Each little town in New Zealand has a "public toilet" for travelers. As a favor to the town, Hundertwasser designed a public toilet which has become a tourist attraction. It was, as with all of his work, both beautiful and careful use of space, and even though it looks odd on its own, the building both fits into, and enhances the space unobtrusively. 

After visiting the Cape, I travelled down to the Hokianga harbor on the less touristy, quietly beautiful west coast. The hostel I stayed in was recommended to me by Hilary and Erik's housemate, John, who had visited New Zealand several years ago. The place was called The Treehouse. It's main building was built in the middle of a stand of trees, and there's a large skylight in it, that really makes you feel like you are sleeping up in a tree. It was wonderful and quiet. And not touristy. Yay!

3/10 - Flight to Auckland and time with Matt R

After a quiet night with my Fijian host family, during which I tried to cook them a risotto dinner without Parmesan or abborrio rice, which went over surprisingly well...or, at least, everyone politely ate it, I went to bed early to get to the airport by 6am, local time. My family drove me to the airport. Everyone in the family was exceedingly kind and gracious. I'm so happy I met them!

The flight to Auckland went uneventfully enough. My one worry was that, due to my lack of a wireless Internet connection, I wasn't able to contact Meghan's friend Matt to confirm with him that he would meet me at the airport to pick me up. The only information I had about him was that he would be wearing all black with white stripes. It was, then, amazing how well this old-school method for connecting at airports (I.e. pre cell phone era) worked! Within about 5 minutes of milling around in the lobby, I saw a man dressed as described above. At the same time upon looking at each other, we mouthed each other's names. 

Matt then drove me to his mum's house, where he is currently staying in between apartments, and we dropped off my stuff en route to driving me downtown to buy a cell phone and to rent a car. 

These things accomplished, I spent the evening with Matt. He very generously took me out to dinner and drinks at various Auckland pubs and we chatted about travels, especially his adventures in Canada and Australia, as well as what it's like for him to have a kid.