January 7 - January 10

January 7tH

We started the morning in Rotorua with one last thing on our to-do list: Luging! The site has a gondola that takes you up a "mountain" in Rotorua. At the top there are three different luge runs: a scenic, an intermediate, and an advanced. The scenic has four or five rest stops on the way down which allowed us to take a few action photos. Doug doesn't look like he's going fast but trust me, he's rocketing down the hill. We have added Zorbing videos to the Yahoo link provided at the bottom of this leg's update.

After playing in Rotorua for a while, we take off for our next destination - The Tongoriro Crossing. We're staying in the town of Ohakune. It's a small town, but has enough restaurants that we won't be eating at the same place twice. In fact, we both swear that on Monday we had the best hamburger that we ever had. It sure was good (and it wasn't just because we were hungry)!

We checked into our Rail Carriage for the next few nights.

January 8th

The day started too early with us having to catch the Tongariro Crossing shuttle at 7:15am. We pick up a few others and finally get dropped off at the start of the hike about 8:25. All seemed good at that point.

All of the guide books say this is a "must do" hike - it's actually a one-day part of a three-day hike. The Tongariro Crossing is actually the crossing between two different mountains, Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ngauruhoe. The trek that we did was 10.5 miles and starts off at 3600 feet , goes up to 6233 feet, and then you climb down to 2625 feet. And as you will see from the photos, this area is very rich in post-volcanic activity. We probably should have done a little more homework on it before we started, but we finished, so that's what's important. The overall hike took us 8 hours and 55 minutes to complete.

The hike starts off nice and easy and even gives you some man-made decks to walk on. Then you encounter "Devil's Staircase", and it's called that for a very good reason. It's an 1150 ft climb up volcanic rock. Then you have a nice easy stretch and then it has an 820 ft climb up softer soil which brings you to the top (at Red Crater).

You get some pretty views of the Emerald Lakes and of the Blue Lake. They even look like they might be a nice place for a quick swim, but the water is highly acidic and is not fit for anything useful (if you'll look closely, you'll see a lack of plant-life).

Then the hike became even more interesting. We had to climb our way down 655 feet of very loose and unstable gravel. This was the absolute worst part!! The hike gives you a quick break and then you start your never-ending (3.5 hours) climb down to the end. We didn't think we were ever going to reach the end!

We're actually very luck to have had the opportunity to do the hike. A lot of folks probably never would have tried it, and a lot of folks who want to do it are usually turned away due to bad weather. All of the tourists that we ran into last week said that they were not able to do the hike due to snow! Luckily we had a very sunny day with just a little bit of cold wind on one leg.

We have tons of pictures of the hike. If you want to see them, just ask.

We caught the shuttle back to our Carriage and had just enough energy to shower and find some dinner in town.

January 9

Today is a recovery day for us. We may not be smart enough to not go on the hike, but we're smart enough to know that we wouldn't be fit to do anything productive today. We basically slept-in and finally got up for some lunch in town. We've already mentioned the best burger that we've ever had. Yummmmm!

We did get in one tourist related activity, and that was visiting the Giant Carrot. Ohakune is known as the carrot capital of New Zealand. Their main industry is actually from skiing tourism, but they've decided on carrots as a back-up industry (it seems like they keep getting volcanic eruptions and earthwakes that discourage tourism).

The rest of the afternoon we've been doing pictures and updating this.

In the morning, we will be packing up and heading to Wellington for our fifth leg, and hopefully we'll find a lap-top friendly internet cafe.

But before we leave for the day, here are some other interesting tid-bits of information about New Zealand that we've either learned or discovered.

There is no tipping (even at restaurants).

• Tax is already included in all of the posted prices.

• Gas prices must be regulated because every station has the exact same price.

• It is very difficult to sue someone. This leads to having some pretty fun activities to do. Can you imagine having Zorbing or a Luge activity in the United States and the number of lawsuits that would follow? Basically in New Zealand, if you're crazy enough to do it, then it's your responsibility.

• At restaurants, they will typically have a self-serve water station where you can get your own water. They don't do the carbonated (gas) water like the crazy (no offense to anyone reading this) Europeans.

• The weather is a lot like it is in Hawaii. There may be a brief rain shower, but then it's over and done with. The days are quite warm, but it can be quite cool at night or if there is a strong wind.

• The sun isn't setting until about 9:00pm, which is really helping chase away the winter blues we were having.

Thanks again for checking out our adventure. We'll catch you in a few days after we've explored Wellington!

Logistics

We're staying 3 nights here. The last full day is to hopefully recover from a full day of hiking.

We've stayed in an airplane, so we might as well stay in a train car too (Doug found this one as well): Train Hotel

The Tongariro Crossing is supposed to be one of the best hiking adventures in New Zealand. It's 10.5 miles (that's 17km for our metric friends) and we hope we're in adequate shape to finish it. Here are a couple of links to the hike:

NZ Dept. of Conservation

Tongariro Expeditions

We're just glad we're doing this one in the summer!