Earth, Wind, and ..... Water

Hello again dear friends!!! We are back to civilization and are getting some much needed rest. I will catch you up on the happenings, but as usual will start with some observations about Kiwi culture:

• WHERE ARE ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE?????I am serious! I am not saying that I have only seen white people since we have come here, but there are literally no black people here. It feels strange. I keep forgetting to blog about this, but it keeps freaking me out over and over again. 
• What is up with timed showers in every campground? You roughly have between 5 and 7 minutes of light/hot water/water in general/heat etc. This is controlled by a button. At the less evil campgrounds the button is inside your shower cabin. (Only you know what kind of a wasteful asshole you are ever time you press the button again). At the more evil campgrounds the button is outside the cabin door, so that everyone in the bathroom knows what you wasteful maggot you are. At the most evil campground I have been to there is a light-switch in the shower/bathroom area that has to be pressed every 7 minutes or else the room becomes pitch black. The light-switch is located across the room from the showers, right by the door. This means that if you take longer than 7 minutes to walk in, get to the shower cabin, strip down, shower, get dressed again and walk out, you have to get out of the warm shower, with soap in your eyes and walk stark naked across the room, hit the light switch, perhaps flash an impressionable youth milling by the bathroom your naughty bits, and walk your naked ass back to the privacy of your stall. (JOY!!!)

Ok, now for the adventures:
First on our list was Taupo and it was pretty damn awesome. I wanted to take it easy so we went on a 14k hike by the Huka Waterfall. The waterfall and the rapids made me think of Scope and York Peppermint Patty commercials. That is how blue the water was! I am not exaggerating, it is really really really blue. What made the hike really worth while was the Dam at the Aratiatia Power Plant. The gates open 4 times a day and water rushes out making for a spectacular and beautiful spectacle.

The next adventure we had was going to the Waitamo Caves to go tubing and look at the beautiful glow-worms. If you are ever in NZ I really recommend that you do this. (but you can't be claustrophobic or afraid of the dark). While searching for a way to describe the experience I found this blog. The funny part is that the facts of what this woman is saying are the same, but every time she reacts negatively to something, we liked it. It's fun to float on a tube in total darkness looking up at what looks like the night sky, it's fun to fall backwards into the water, she was just not as adventurous as we are I guess, but she is very amusing! Also, she exaggerates A LOT. No water was rushing, the falls were not really that high up, no one felt like a prisoner.

When we came back I took a shower at the campground. As the water was alternating between burning my skin (every time someone flushed) and chilling me (every time someone else turns on their shower, or washes their hands) I started thinking about how little is actually needed for happiness. It wasn't the "holier than thou" kind of thinking where I decide to come back, give away all of my possessions, and live in a cardboard box for the rest of my life. It was the kind of philosophizing where I fully accept that when I come back to the US, I will still want a granite counter top, and a new tablet, and some cool toys from REI, but realize that these are not the things that will truly make me happy by ownership, or sad by lack of ownership.I am thinking about how a life with the type of shower that I am currently taking can be happy and all of the other stuff is superfluous. Right at that moment the light and water both turn off in my stall. Of course, I have shampoo in my eyes and I have to blindly grope along the stall to press the button that is luckily on the inside of the cabin. At that moment I decide that even though life is good, a couple of luxuries would indeed make me a little happier :)

The day of the Tongariro trip I got up nervous and excited. It was to be my first multi-day trip and I was a little scared. We got to a relatively late start, but made it to the info center by early afternoon. The nice guides told us that they were expecting 90kph winds at the top of the Red Crater (the highest point of our walk) the next day - which is when we would be crossing it. they said, that if the winds keep up, the track will be too dangerous and they will refund out money for the remainder of the huts. alternatively, we could hope that the forecast is incorrect and start on out track with the understanding that we might have to turn back. As we are adventurers of the highest sort, we decided to try our luck and go anyway.

I managed to get hurt 2 hours into our trip. It had rained earlier in he day and the track was muddy. I was trying to walk on the steep edge several feet above the muddy track, but a slipped into the mud. I grabbed on to a bush to stop myself from sliding down and hit my mouth on the branch. It looked fine from the outside, but the inside part of my lower lip was completely bloody for several days. It's as Mike always says: "It's all fun and games until Kathy gets hurt". Once I got stupid hiking injury off of my to do list we made it to the first campsite without incident. The ranger there was worried about our tent getting broken by the gale so he told us we could move into the hut and sleep on the floor if the wind gets too crazy in the night. He also warned us about the wind for the next day. Mike and I kept our spirits up and had a cozy cold night of sleep (which was not windy at all).

The next day was our trial by wind. Thankfully the gale got downgraded from 90kph to a mere 70. It was no longer unsafe to go, but the rangers said that it would not be pleasant. We decided that we will try going up, and if it gets too bad we will turn back and figure out options at the bottom. The first 2 hours were fine, it even looked like the clouds were getting blown off as we were walking, so we had high hopes of success. We also ran into a couple of day hikers that had made the crossing, so we knew it was possible. As we got higher up the wind did pick up quite a bit. At a certain height, we had what we call "visibility-good" where you can't see more than 20 feet in front of you. After stopping for lunch at an area that was covered from the wind Mike and I made our final ascent. It felt like we were on Mars! we were walking on lava rock, with the wind howling around us and a whiteout everywhere. If it wasn't so cold, I would say that it looked like a BM whiteout. Several times we could not see the next trail marker and Mike would run a recon mission. This was the day that we had to go up about 700 meters from 1200 to 1886, so it was a pretty tough climb. Finally we started going down which was a blessing :)

I smelled the sulphur of the Emerald Lakes way before we could see anything. We could barely make out a different color in the fog, but suddenly there was a strong gust of wind, and just for a second the clouds got blown off to reveal this:

Mike didn't even have time to take a camera out. It was an amazing piece of luck!. This happened every time we got near a lake. As we continued our descent to a point that was covered from the wind, the clouds started to clear again, and we were treated to some spectacular views of the valley below us. Our descent was through old volcanic runoff so there were a lot of loose rocks. A beautiful view made it a much easier hike. 

It was almost 7pm when we made it to our campsite for the night. We estimate that the day's hiking took us almost 7 hours if you don't take out the 30 minutes we took for lunch. We ate like beasts, drank some hot chocolate and then bedded down for the night. Prior to going to bed we got treated to a beautiful sunset over the Ngauruhoe Mountain. It looked like the sun was balancing on the tip of the mountain in a sea of pink clouds. Between that sunset and the Emerald Lakes, our day of adventure was incredible. 

While sitting in the hut and making hot cocoa, I struck up a conversation with an older gentleman. We got to talking, and it turns out that he and his wife moved to Auckland from Tehran about 30 years ago. I asked him about it, since that time frame coincided with the change in the regime and he said that they left shortly after he and his 13 year old brother were arrested. His father had to make a choice of which one of them he would try and save. Since the man was the oldest son, and his wife was pregnant, his father went to find him. The prisons could not accommodate the number of prisoners, so the man was held at a local school. His father heard about it, and went to the school to look for him. The guards were not being helpful so that the father asked if he could go in and have a drink of water from a water fountain on the inside and was granted his request. By some miracle, the man was being held right by the water fountain so his father was able to find him. they had a connection who pulled some strings and got him released. Shortly after, he and his wife left for NZ. I did not ask about what happened to his 13 year old brother. 

Unfortunately, this was the night that we did not get too much sleep because the wind was howling and almost broke our tent. We were cold and awake most of the night. Everyone left the hut by 7 am, so Mike and I got in there to make breakfast and get warm. We must have stayed there for several hours and it was glorious. We only had a 3 hour hike on this day, which was great because I was exhausted. Once we got to our last campsite all I could do was eat and sleep. 

Our last day of the hike was great. As we were done with most of the food, we repacked and Mike took a bunch of things out of my backpack. I felt as though I was flying. We stopped 3 hours in and had a very nice lunch, dropped our bags and went on a side trip to the the upper and lower Tama Lakes. After 4 days of hiking with heavy backpacks, we practically ran uphill! This was the break that we needed and we came back to our packs, finished off our food and walked back to Whakapapa village. 

That is pronounced Faak-a-papa, and let me tell you that we could not stop joking about it. 

• "We have 5 hours to Whakapapa"
• "We are going to Whakapapa"
• "How long to Whakapapa?"
• "Is there a Whakamama?"
• etc

We came back to out car tired, dirty, hungry, and happy. We even went out to eat, which we only do on very special occasions. We were able to walk to the car just fine, but after the 40 minute ride back to our town, we hobbled around like invalids. We went into the restaurant and saw a very built guy sitting and having dinner. At some point later he got up, and hobbled toward the exit. "Tongariro?" I said giving him a "brothers in arms" smile. He smiled, nodded, and hobbled out :)

The only other adventure I have to tell you about is our surfing. We signed up for a surfing lesson and I think we both fell in love. Mike got up on the surfboard almost immediately, I think he was made for surfing. I got up a total of 3 times, and my last time even managed to stay on the board and cruise for about 3 seconds. It was so much fun!!! Mike and I are both "goofy" which means we have the opposite of a normal stance on a board. How fitting for us! I think we will have to make some time for surfing in between all of our hiking. We might even get surfboards in OZ to practice. It's awesome. Another fun language story. When Kiwis say 'deck' it sounds like 'dick'. Our instructor started out by naming the different parts of the surfboard. there are the rails, the bottom, the front, the back and the deck. Mike was convinced that the top of the surfboard is called a male sexual organ for most of the day. I miss you guys!

Happy 2014 Everyone

Happy New Year's to all of my cabin fevered friends battling record cold weather and tons of snow! I miss you all. So that you don't hate me too much for the weather we are having, I will disclose to you that I just got stung by a wasp in my armpit, so there is still some suffering on this side of the world :) Misery loves company, right?

I will start with more Kiwi-isms again, so get your pencils ready!

• Kumara - Sweet Potato, so you would order Kumara fries here instead of sweet potato fries. Also, they love to put Kumara into Hummus.
• Capsicum - Bell Pepper
• Courgette - Zucchini

A word on Hummus in NZ, Unless you bought it at a farmer's market, it will be horrible.

This week has been an eye opening experience for me in regards to money and how I have been thinking about it, or rather not thinking about it in the default world. In the States, if I want something at a grocery store I buy it, if I want to go out for dinner even though I have food at home, I go. If I want to have 3 drinks at a bar, I don't give it another thought. All of that has changed here. I hav become much more aware of brand names, in season produce, sales, specials and how expensive some of our habits are.

It seems to me now, that Mike and I have been burning through money in the States for stupid reasons. It's not as though we weren't saving, we were, but we could have done much more. It might also be that everything is more expensive here. The spending we are going to really cut out is the alcohol. I'm not talking about having drinks in a bar - that can't happen outside of special occasions, I'm talking about buying alcohol in a store. Here, Jack Daniel's whiskey (1.75 L) is $89 on sale, the same bottle at Binny's is $39.

Very quickly, it seems that we are becming a different type of shopper, a smarter type of shopper. We never throw out our food anymore, because we only buy what we need. I could not figure out how to to that at home. We would end up throwing out leftovers, and spoiled veggies all the time. Here, we don't even have a refrigerator until we stop at a camping spot, and we don't have that problem. It's amazing what a little shift in perspective can do for you.

I know that it's not as simple in the States, because I have an unlimited amount of time to spend on shopping and food prep here, but it's still a chore and it does detract from the other things we are doing. I am really hoping this change in attitude will stick. It would allow us to save at a much greater rate, or do more expensive fun things periodically. I know, that as the parents are reading this, a lone fat tear of joy is slowly gliding down their cheek.

Now on with the actual happenings in the last week or so. We spent New Year's in Auckland. There was a party that Olichka and Steve were invited to and they were kind enough to bring us along. The party started off as a pool party at noon, so by the time we got there (around 7) we had a lot of catching up to do. The party was full of characters, and this time I had no problem socializing (I think because most people were around my age). Here is a list of characters that I had met:

1. A man I will call "Blond Sklya" - This guy really looked like Sklya and every time I looked at him I was surprised he was blond, and not Russian. He spent all night walking around in very short and tight shorts, and nothing else :). His hair was straight and even cut in the same style as Sklya, it was uncanny, but the resemblance ended there. He came over, and told Mike and I a really long story about buying a $10,000 dollar watch, assuming it was waterproof and destroying it in less than a year
2. A girl with the last name Maloney - She was really drunk and kept speaking in a fake Irish accent. She is Kiwi, but told us that everyone assumes she is from Ireland, and she has decided to just go with it. She was totally hilarious, I hope I run into her again. Picture the heaviest Irish accent that you can. Now try to imagine someone completely plastered, but so commited to the performance that they continue to speak in this accent all night long. "Helloo, me name is Maaalooooney, I'm from ire-laand." It was amazing!
3. A 19 YO kid who was completely and utterly wasted and looked like he just stumbled around from place to place. "Blond Sklya" told me a story about why he was there, something about his dad, but I forgot what it was.
4. An Australian couple who is travelling through - The girl in particular was very interested in us taking the year off and travelling. She said that she and her man travelled through Cali for a little while, and also Mexico. She told me about all of the places I should go, but I promptly forgot them. Her hair was the most peroxide blond that I have ever seen, and she was very very tan. I assume that she fit in to most of the Cali look without a problem.

I have to say that the fireworks display in Auckland was very tame. It had nothing on even the suburban 4th of July displays that I have seen in Chicago. A little disappointing, but in the grand scheme of things, the party was very fun. The view from the deck was of the Auckland Skyline along with the marina. It was worth the hangover of the following morning!

We left for Rotorua on Jan 2nd and it was basically a road day where not much has happened. Something I feel like I still needed after the party :) Rotorua is awesome! One of the days we were here, we went to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, and that name does not lie! Check it out: here. It was like visiting another planet! So far, I think it's my favorite place in NZ. 

We have also been training for our multi-day hikes and hiking with and without packs. I am going to brag and say that we hiked, not walked, 25 kilometers in 5 hours and 20 minutes. (15.6 miles of a hike up and down hills) We did not have packs, and we did stop for an hour to have lunch, but that distance is waaaaay more than we are expecting to hike on any day of the multi-day hikes, so I'm pretty happy - although very sore.

We are now done with Rotorua and will just drive until the mood strikes us to stop. We booked a 4 day hike Jan 12-15th s we will definitely be off the grid on those days. More soon, I promise :)