Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Tongariro Crossing
The Tongariro Crossing is one of the top day hikes in the world through volcanoes and sulfur lakes, including the volcano Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings!!! (which is actually Mt. Nguaruhoe in real life). The hike was about 18 km which normally takes about 7-8 hours, but we did it in 6. There was a good portion of the hike that was up steep hills and extremely challenging, but the rewarding feeling at the end was so worth it!
above the clouds!!
We drove up to Tongariro National Park on Friday evening with Emily, Daniela, Lori, Christie, MK, Jess, and Pat and stayed in a hostel near the crossing. The hostel was pretty nice, had a fire and free tea to warm us up! Our shuttle left at 8:00 in the morning and brought us to the crossing, and later picked us up on the other end of it. When we first started walking it was a bit chilly and very cloudy out, but we were ripping off layers within minutes. The weather was crazy, changing at every height we were at, and we were pretty much walking in the clouds the entire time. One of the things we really wanted to do was hike Mt. Doom but our bus driver told us that the weather was looking unpredictable that day and if something happened they wouldn't be able to find us for weeks. We were all pretty disappointed but thought it would be best to listen to someone who knew more than we did. Here is a picture of Mt. Doom! I had to take it fast since the clouds would come rolling in within seconds. But, got a bit of sunlight for this one!
mt. doom!
Since we couldn't hike Mt. Doom, we decided to do the extra trail to the summit. As soon as we started walking higher, the wind was incredibly strong I couldn't hear anything. We were in the clouds too, so I could barely see anything and just had to look as I went step by step. Some parts were very steep and I got a little nervous that I was going to fall off the mountain! But we were fine. Here's a video of us at the top of the summit.
After that we made our way down the steep mountain, and the ground was soft dirt that you'd sink into as you walked... which made it very easy to fall (many of us wiped out). We started observing other people running down which seemed to be the easiest way to get down quickly without walling, so we ran the rest of the way, lots of fun! When we got to the bottom we took off our sneakers and dumped out inches of dirt. My sneakers are still incredibly dirty from it. We now reached the sulfur pools, which were BRIGHT blue. Here's a picture.
We knew we were ahead of schedule at this point so we took a little water break and cleaned out our shoes, and then continued on! After this point there was one more hill and then it was all down hill from there. We stopped for a lunch break overlooking a lake and then finished the trek!!! Such a good feeling to be done, but so exhausted. I was sore for days after, but it was definitely worth it! We found our shuttle and enjoyed some free tea in our hostel, then drove to Taupo to SKYDIVE!!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
South Island: Days 9-13
Day 9: Milford Sound
One of my other favorite days on the trip. We all took a bus tour down to Milford Sound from Queenstown, about a 4-5 hour drive stopping along the way at beautiful sights and waterfalls. Our group took a boat tour around the sound, and got a buffet lunch included (which was delicious because we had been living off of pbj sandwiches all week). Milford Sound was beautiful, especially since I love the water so much! Pictures will describe it better than words can.. here are a few and a video.
Loyola Group!
Day 10: Drive to Dunedin
Day 11: Dunedin
Did a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory in the morning! Then spent the rest of the day exploring Dunedin. We went to tunnel beach which was a pleasant surprise, we had no idea what to expect. We hiked all the way down to the beach- went through a tunnel to get all the way to the bottom. The whole thing was just very nice and scenic and really relaxing. We hung out there for a while laying in the sun and taking it all in.
After tunnel beach we all drove to the Otago Peninsula where we tailgaited watching penguins come running out of the water. haha it was so much fun, everyone gave us strange looks but that's what you gotta do when you're living in vans! The penguins were neat, we couldn't take pictures or anything but they were little guys and we all sat in a small stadium and watched them leave the water and run up onto the shore. Apparantly they do this every day and in summer months there are hundreds more of them. We began the drive to Lake Tekapo after this, where we drove to the creepiest campsite ever. Had to open gates to get to it! It was an adventure though, and in the morning it looked absolutely fine. At night it was terrifying!
Day 12: Lake Tekapo!
Lake Tekapo was quite lovely! We decided to go on a hike, that turned into an adventurous mountain climb. We created our own path, had to crawl through pricker bushes as one point! It was so worth it though, because at the top was the most incredible view of the lake and mountains in the distance. Absolutely exhausting but so beautiful. After lake tekapo we all found a campsite to stay for our last night in the South Island. The one we found was free AND had bathrooms with running water haha it's hilarious how amazing that felt to us at that time. We had such a fun night and just celebrated an incredible trip together.
Day 13: Castle Hill and Chrischurch! The End!
Castle Hill was one of my favorite places! It was just endless limestone rocks as far as you could see, so we climbed them and it felt like we were in a giant playground. So fun, I could have stayed there all day climbing rocks and looking at the view. After that we headed back to Christchurch, cleaned up James May and handed him in... then saw the botanical gardens and a few areas in Christchurch and caught our flight home! We got back really late and were exhausted, but it was the best 2 weeks of my lifeee.
Castle Hill!
Christchurch
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