Lord of the Rings!

When Mr Adam Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magni- ficence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton......

In our very own Lotr adventure we journeyed  to Mt Doom, a long and dangerous journey across middle earth(well 1hr 30 down state highway 1, but is was 5 am!) so that we could, like Frodo destroy the one true ring...or go for a walk in the snow. The approach from Taupo at around 6am, the sun casting a deep red glow across the mountains and mist we could almost believe we were in the movie....

 

ok well not quite... we were taking part in the tongariro crossing, one of the great walks of New zealand and said to be the best one day hike in the country and in the top ten of the world! The Hike is around 18.5km and took us about 6 hours, from the start in the volcanic slopes of the mountains to the snow capped plains nearer the summit the down past the geothermal pools and the golden grass medows and through the birch forest to the end. The walk was in no way as hard as half dome, but with us working full time (doing this on our day off) we really felt it (well at least i did!) Unfortunately as we reached the high point the clouds started to set in and so the promised view of coast to coast never materialized, however the views were still incredible! We did'nt climb up Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt doom) (due to the lack of climbing equipment and experience, but we did attempt to reach the summit of Mt Tongariro, however the mix of snow, ice and deadly drop made us stop half way (Tess would have gone on....) but hey, at least we got to play in some snow!

Here is the view from the base of Mt doom! Oh yer if you are looking at the photos on flickr tess is wearing shorts for most of the alpine walk... that there some hardy little legs!

The far side of the world

----------- CRAZY NEWS!!!!! - now i think this may be a error on the behalf of Flickr, but yesterday it is recording over 650 views of the site in under 12hrs (i dont really believe it) what the hell you guys doing?!-----------------

Hey all.

So i decided to fill you all in on whats  happening here in  New Zealand and what we have been up to since we left fiji also 3 weeks ago. After arriving at Auckland we grabbed a tent (tess once again showed her obbesive compulsive need to name everything, the tent is 'Milly') and a car ('oti') and we decided to hit the road exploring where we would like to base ourselves. Of course this is the simplified version, and without the help of David and Sue im sure we would still be wondering around car dealerships with no ideas what was happening! To keep this brief, our road trip took us up to the Coromandel penisular (at one campsite here i asked where the water was, and the guy pointed at the river like i was a moron 'what no tap?' i cried. Again the same look as he explained there was no need for a tap, as he had just pointed out, the river is just there!) then we went down the Mt monganui, played with a kite on the beach and did a short hike, then to Rotorua, the thermal hot springs and Kiwis breeding center. From here we went down to Napier, did some wine tasting and enjoyed the chilled out seaside town atmosphere before arriving here, in Taupo.

Now this is where the story gets even better. After sending out some CVs and waiting a bit we both now have jobs! both in cafes, Tess in 'Replete' and me in 'Taste'. With jobs under the belt the tent was put away and we have now found a nice little apartment 20min walk out of town overlooking the lake and moutains (which i totally forgot to mention, Taupo has the most amazing setting next to the largest lake in austrailisa with three snow covered moutains as a backdrop. The one mountain was Mt Doom in lord of the rings?!, which basically means we live next to a celebrity! Anyhoo just wanted to keep everyone up to date!