"The world was young, the mountains green..."

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say. 

Starting a New Zealand post with a LOTR quote seemed like good idea. So this is going to be my last blog post from the North Island of New Zealand… I have a week left in Auckland, and in this time I will take one more exam, attend a farewell dinner with all our kiwi professors, celebrate Thanksgiving with my abroad group, hit up the nightlife a few more times, and just generally spend as much time as I can outdoors enjoying the city/marvelously warm weather. Yeah, basically it’s a week to say ‘E noho ra’/goodbye to Auckland, goodbye to Blockhouse Bay and my host family, goodbye to the University and my favorite study space in the library, goodbye to hot kebabs on Queen Street, to fish and chips on the harbor, to the trusty 258 and 249 bus lines, and to the volcano hills around the city that I’ve had so much fun exploring.  

           A week left right? Why am I starting to think about all this now? Well I had to say goodbye to Rob, the students, and my Lynfield College placement already. After we sat in on his class, he took Laura and I back to Mangere Mountain, to the pillow lava formations in the bay, and to a kauri forest that was mummified and preserved in volcanic ash from the eruption. If you’ll remember from an older post, this is the same area Rob took me on my first day working with him and, in his words, it was good to “end as we began.” The only difference is that we also got to share this place with Laura and that I refused to let him buy the coffees this time; after all the awesome things he’s taught me this semester the least I could do is treat him to a “cuppa”. In the spirit of working with kids, I also gave him a friendship bracelet I made and explained that when I work at the American camps, the staff and kids usually make these for friends who have significantly impacted their experience/life… and yeah all that was my first tough goodbye of the trip.

gannet colony at Muriwai

            I was outdoors for the entirety of my final Sunday in Auckland. Melissa’s British host parents took us for a picnic on Muriwai Beach, which is one of the black beaches on the west coast. Within walking distance from the beach is a massive gannet colony, there were thousands of seabirds nesting there and most of them had tiny fluffy newly hatched chicks which looked like the fuzzy baby penguins from Happy Feet. The host-family has two adorable white terriers that played with us on the beach and stole cheese during lunch; seriously made me miss Beauregard because I know he would love Muriwai beach. As we ate lunch, all these horseback riders kept cantering their big bay horses along the beach and, although it was gorgeous to watch, I was very very very jealous and wanted to steal a pony. We stopped at a strawberry farm on the way back to Auckland and Sarah, the host mom, treated us to some FANTASTIC fresh strawberry ice cream. Normally I don’t trust any non-chocolate ice cream flavour, but the deliciousness of that strawberry ice cream was off the charts. I spent the rest of the day hiking an awesome trail I found in Blockhouse Bay that follows the coast and weaves in an out of the bush. Basically that was my last day to hang out with the bay and the beach and the neighborhood.

UM in other world news, I also got a new host sister last week from Brazil named Veri. She’s awesome; her English is still in the works so we communicate largely by charades and misunderstandings but it’s actually very funny and fun. Because my workload hasn’t been bad lately, I have been spending a few hours each evening helping her with her English homework. At the end of every study sesh she always says, “thanks for helping…. I’m soooo sorry it took so long” to which I always remind her that I am a teacher!! I love helping students with material and somehow never get tired of it. In regular conversation, Lorna (who’s British) and I compete with eachother in convincing Veri to pronounce words the “right” way… so far we have had major debates on the ‘proper’ pronunciation of garage (brits call it GAR-idge), advertisement (ad-VER-tis-MENT), Adidas (aah-dee-daas), and glacier (glass-ee-er). Haa silly British. Veri came out Salsa dancing and partying with me and the other Americans this weekend, which was awesome…

White Waikato cliffs

What else what else…. Oh right I had THE MOST AMAZING WEEKEND OF MY TRIP THUS FAR NO BIGGIE. But seriously, everything about last weekend’s trip to Lake Taupo was brilliant. We pulled in at 2 am Friday night, stumbled through the town until we found our hostel and beds, and then woke up the next morning to a surprising but gorgeous view of the lake and snow capped mountains. First stop: Bungy jumping off the steep white cliffs of the Waikato River. This site is regarded as the most beautiful location to jump on the North Island, and not to be too cheesy, but it seemed much more spiritual plunging head first into the turquoise waters of the Waikato rather than diving from the steel-and-concrete bungy pads in downtown Auckland. I love adrenaline, but I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t nervous about the jump. It was the head-first-tied-by-your-ankles thing that got to me; no amusement park ride comes close to this unsupported head-first free fall. Before I went, I watched a few of the jumps; you would see the person jump and scream… and then five minutes later you would see
 a limp empty harness being reeled back into the launch pad. 
It reminded me of the scene in Jurassic Park, 

T-rex bait

where the cow in its harness is lowered into the T-Rex cage… and then after some unpleasant noises the harness is lifted back out of the pen, eerily empty. I teamed up with my friend Lauren, who was admittedly very nervous about the whole ordeal but totally committed. I didn’t know at the time, but the bungee company filmed us waiting on the launch pad before we jumped and showed us this video after we survived. In the video I’m making a bunch of jokes and smiling at Lauren, acting totally pumped and reassuring her that it is just like a seabird diving down to catch some fish (I know, weird way to comfort somebody)… but every time she looked away I closed my eyes and did ten or so rounds of deep breathing to keep myself calm haha because I was totally freaking out on the inside. The nerves hit when they shackled my ankles together… and then led me to the edge of the platform, staring down at the 47-meter drop. As soon as the staff said “go!”, there was no hesitation from either of us and we just made the leap. Thrilling, beautiful, terrifying: I absolutely loved the jump. And then after the forces of physics had their way with us, we hung upside-down by our ankles waiting for the little boat to come get us down… that part sucked.

Hiking along the Waikato River

Craters of the Moon geothermal park

I spent the rest of the day hiking around the Taupo region with three of my friends. Taupo is a giant volcanic zone… the lake itself is the crater from a massive eruption, there are chains of volcanic mountains in every direction, and large sections of the river and land is “steaming” from geothermal intrusion. First we went to the Craters of the Moon geothermal park that is full of wide red craters that emit steam and boiling mud… these craters formed because steam built up underground and eventually all that pressure was released in a mini explosion. Then we walked east to Huka Falls; this is a river canyon made of hard granite which qualifies as a 

band photo in front of the hot waterfall

class 6 rapid. Then we followed a gorgeous trail along the Waikato river, where we encountered wildflowers, native birds, rainbows, campsites, and fisherman. Eventually we arrived at a little wooden bridge, and underneath it ran a very clear stream with steaming waterfalls and pools of hot water. This was one of Taupo’s “hot streams” that is heated geothermally and then runs into the ice cold Waikato river. We got free back massages by sitting underneath the hot waterfalls and then walked downstream to feel the ‘layers’ of water, that is, hot water floating on the surface by our waists and freezing cold water sinking to the bottom by our ankles. Yay for particle density and science.

Reminds me of Geneva NY this time of year

The next day we woke up at 5:30 am to catch a shuttle to the Tongariro National Park to attempt the very challenging Tongariro Alpine Crossing that is renown as New Zealand’s best day hike. The hike is through an active volcanic field, climbing up the steep “aa” lava flows to the snow covered summits, along a massive steaming blood-red crater, down a steep ashy slope comprised of loosely packed footing that crumbled away with every step, along the electric blue Emerald Lakes with the smell of sulfur in the air, through fields of sloshy wet snow where vicious snowball fights broke out, and finally a loooooooong decent down grassy Lord-of-the-Rings style paths that endlessly winded back and forth and up and down. The whole ordeal took about 6 rigorous hours and 3 delicious granola bars, but we survived and, as a group, felt like we had just conquered the world. For me, it was a stunning and powerful experience that I can’t entirely share with photos and words. That evening was spent treating our muscles to the hot stream and soaking up guitar music and cider at our hostel.

Mount Ngauruhoe/"Mt Doom" on the left,
active stratovolcano

LOTR landscape, Lake Taupo in the distance

Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli looking
 longfully at the Emerald Lakes

on top of the steamy red crater

Jumping into a very cold lake

On our final day in Taupo, three people from our group went skydiving, three went off exploring, and so Kat and I decided we needed to board a sailboat and enjoy the lake a bit. The sun was out, the weather was magnificent, and all morning we laid on the deck of a sailboat-yacht (whatever is in between those two types of boats, I don’t really know anything about the nautical world) called the Fearless. Eventually we arrived at the site of the beautiful Maori rock/cliff carvings; these carvings were done in the 1970’s to spiritually protect Lake Taupo from future volcanic eruptions and my favorites were a celtic mermaid, a guardian lizard, and the 10 meter tall depiction of 
the Maori navigator, Ngatoroiangi.

Sailing up to the Maori carvings

On my busride home, I sat next to a guy from Chicago who kept asking me geology questions about New Zealand so, whether or not he knew the full extent of what he was getting into, I properly talked his ear off for five hours. Look, If your gonna ask I’m gonna answer… I like to talk rocks.

The weekend before that we went to Coromandel Peninsula, which was also awesome. Just like at the end of every post, I’m getting burned out from all this writing so I will link my friend Kat’s blog post called “Cathedral Cove looks like a church” which has more about the weekend. The highlights of this trip were an afternoon of sea kayaking in kayaks that were not made for the sea (serious flippage), hiking to the beautiful Cathedral Cove which was carved out by sea erosion, celebrating Guy Fawkes day with massive fireworks and a giant bonfire on the beach, taking a mini-train ride up into the Coromandel Mountain Ranges, and laying on the “Hot Beach” where you can dig a hole in the sand and let the geothermally warmed waters seep through and fill your “bath”.

Cathedral cove

very unpredictable kayaks

hotties on the hot beach 

And with that, I have successfully updated my blog! I know this post has some formatting issues, but I really can't be bothered to fight with this website because I always lose and it always wins. I have the day off, so my plans are firstly to go snarf the carrot cake that Lorna left me and then I’ll grab my guitar, head to Mt. Hobson, and meet up with Laura who plans to do some artsy sketching of the city. After months of deliberation, I have finally named my travel guitar “Whittaker” (Wit-ta-ker) after an amazing New Zealand chocolate brand. I think Whittaker and I could use some exercise and sunshine so I’m off. Hopefully I’ll be good and get another post up after my travels in the South Island and Sydney, but hey, I’m pretty proud I kept up with this all semester so it’s whatever. Okay America, see you soon but not too soon!

packing the bags, can't wait to be on the road again