Scaling Mount Doom (Honeymoon Days 12-...oh, who cares!)

It seems like an age since we last posted anything, although its only been about a week. Its been a busy week though. I hope I can remember all we've done since Whitianga!

After leaving there we moved on to Rotorua, although not before passing through Hobbiton, otherwise known as Matamata. (check our photo site if you don't believe me!). Rotorua has one major characteristic that you notice immediately upon entering the town - it stinks of rotten eggs! Actually, this is the sulphur and what-have-you that is produced by the geysers in the national park there, as Rotorua is part of the heavily volcanic area of New Zealand. In the evening we were taken to a small Mauri village where they give tourists an idea of the Mauri culture. It was a fantastic evening, with demonstrations of Mauri cooking, a show of Mauri music and dancing, and then a fantastic roast dinner. We were driven out there by our Mauri driver for the evening, Merv, who along with the drivers of the other four buses, really made us all feel at home and part of the tribe. This even included us singing songs from our own countries on the bus ride back to the hostel. We were let down by some of the Canadians on our bus, who couldn't think of anything Canadian to sing, but we gave a performance of "The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen" with great gusto (which, for anyone who has heard me sing, is loud if not tuneful!). Merv then led us in a rendition of "She'll be coming round the mountain", and it quickly transpired that the other buses must have been singing the same song, as two other buses joined us in making a wagon train circling a roundabout for the remainder of the song!

The following morning we took a walk around Te Puia, an area near Rotorua famous for its geysers and boiling mud pools. This is the main source of the egg smell! That made for a very pleasant journey on the bus afterwards down to Waitomo.

Waitomo is particularly known for its black water rafting - basically white water rafting but through pitch-black caves. Naomi gave this a go the next morning, riding the river through the caves on a tyre! I was slightly less adventurous, taking a walk through the limestone caves (the same ones Naomi was rafting through!). I felt justified in this, as I had gone quad biking when we had arrived in Waitomo, which was brilliant fun. We were taking the quads up various hills and narrow tracks, and got some spectacular views of the whole area.

After Naomi recovered from the rafting, we journeyed south to Taupo, where we would spend an extra day (hey, our driver LJ deserved a day off after being "Awesome" the whole way down from Auckland!). While Naomi spent the day resting and recovering from all the travelling, I went for a "short walk" up Mount Doom! This was an 8-hour hike up Mount Ngauruhoe (the volcano used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films) and its neighbour Mount Tongariro. It was an absolutely amazing day, with spectacular scenery. Myself and three of the others on our bus, Magdelena, John and Anna) got so far up before bumping into Barbara, a 77-year-old from Elgin (who was also on our bus). We stayed with her most of the journey, and were amazed at just how much she accomplished (not only that day, but over her whole journey, having sky-dived, gone hang-gliding, black-water rafting, white-water rafting, and was preparing to do a bungee jump when she got to Queenstown!). The hike was, she told us, definitely the most challenging thing she had done, just because the walk was really quite difficult in places. John and Anna had to go on ahead (they were doing a skydive that afternoon and need to get back), so Magdelena and I opted to stay with Barbara and help her with those (very few) bits that she struggled with, so we would all get back for the 4.30 final bus. Which we managed.

I was really pleased with how well we all did that day - it was such an amazing experience, and I'm just glad I was able to do it.

On Sunday we drove down to River Valley, a secluded little spot with a fantastic hostel, completely isolated from everything else. We spent our time here just chilling out and relaxing, although a few people (Barbara included) went horse riding early the next morning. Its an idyllic little spot, right on the edge of the river, and made for a nice break from all the more activity-based places.

Finally yesterday we arrived in Wellington where we had to say farewell to LJ and most of our bus-mates. We've really enjoyed the journey down from Auckland, but a lot of people are continuing down to the South Island tomorrow, while we are going to spend a few days in Wellington recharging our batteries.