Nomadic Adventures

By the time this is posted I know I will be home already, so I apologize for the delay.  It's not my fault though! Oh so much has happened since the last time I wrote and we have hardly stopped moving- or had wi-fi for that matter! Through our end adventures it is not a case of what did we see, but what didn't we.

Since I last posted we:

• Toured the North Island with Elliot
• Traded our car in for a rented campervan and did some exploring (and ife lessons, and crisis) just the two of us
• Picked up two new friends, Ryan and Tarik, and retraced our steps back to Wellington

For the sake of everyone's 21st century attention spans, I will be brief in my writing and let the pictures do the talking!

Part 1: Elliot's Trip
Elliot joined us in the beginning of May in Wellington and left us in Auckland. Our first stop after the capitol was Tongariro National Park in the center of the North Island. The next day (after waking up in our tent which had frosted over in the night!) we began the 7-hour Tongariro Crossing which took us over and around 3 volcanic mountains:

It was quite a feat and luckily we hadn't sent Elliot running for the hills already!

The next day we did a massive swing through a canyon by Taupo. I'm glad Wells and I did it together, I dont know if I could have done it alone! We ended our day in sulfer-smelling, geothermic Rotorua after rolling down the hill in a giant H2Ogo ball filled with water.

Taking the Plunge!

Waitomo Caves: a truly amazing experience with abseiling (repelling), cave exploring and glowworms.  It was great to test the boundaries of my comfort zone, especially when it turned out to be such a great day! I had nothing to be nervous about, only amazed:

Magazine worthy!

That night we headed to Raglan, a small surf town with surf breaks professionals come seek out. We stayed at the Eco lodge in a converted caboose (though apart from some gardening we learned 'Eco' meant 'excuse to have to power outlets'. Noted.)




Our next stop took us to the beautiful bay of Islands north of Auckland where we took a fun sailboat ride in Pahia and Wells caught dinner!

So happy!

We hit the Auckland art gallery and found a cool exhibit that gave us this fun shot

Part 2: Campervan Living

When we were still so excited..

As we had nowhere to live and the prospects weren't looking promising, we sold the car and rented out a campervan... for a month an a half.  As we had to pay upfront, the rental quite nearly broke the bank and we had no money for insurance. This later came back to bite us. However, it was a great way to set out exploring, stay in some interesting places and Wells got a lot of surfing in.  We spent most of our first month in the Northland, north of Auckland.

Undeniably Beautiful

 A couple of the more unusual places we spent the night in our quest to Freedom Camp:

A parking lot by an oil refinery and a wood chipping plant... Hey, they had a bathroom.

A cemetery. As the local who told us about it said: "No one will bother you there. At least no one alive."

Part 3: The Boys' Trip
We picked up Wells's high school friend Ryan and his friend Tarik from the Auckland airport midway through June and made our way back down to Auckland.  Although we hit some of the same places we had with Elliot, our experiences were different ans equally amazing.

They love to be proud.

First, we hit Hot Water Beach in the Coromandel Peninsula.  Digging in the sand uncovers boiling, volcano heated water!
Next, we hit Hobbiton, after making a quick stop to see the shrine to NZ's own soft drink "Lemon & Pearoa', or L&P.  "World famous in New Zealand."

We passed though Rotorua again to take a dip in the free natural hot springs on our way to the Waitomo Caves. Even though we had done this with Elliot, we had a totally different experience with different caves. Green Glow Eco-Adventures was seriously one of the most amazing things we did in New Zealand and worth every penny.  Paul is a wonderful guide and, again, an excellent photographer!

Yes this is a real photo! Glowworms galore.

Tiny crawl spaces!

After this we continued retracing our steps so that we were back in the Tongariro National Park area, where we had done the alpine crossing with Elliot. Except this time there was snow!

Enough snow for some ski, but really nothing beyond the bunny slope.

Lack of snow was bad on the mountains but, it meant that the Alpine Crossing could still be done (with ice axes and crampons).  Wells led the boys through the mountains and I went with them as far as I could before turning around and picking them up at the end.

Luckily, when Wells and I passed through a week later (on our way up to Auckland after the Fulbright ceremony in Wellington) there was definitely enough snow!

Final 'In Review' post to follow!