Sky Dives and Big Hikes

We left Auckland, or rather, we fled Auckland like men on a mission. Ewan went into full truck driver mode while I played the convincing role of the motion sick passenger. Roads in NZ are funny things-- they're winding, full of speeding caravans and take twice as long as a proper road should to get where you're going. Or at least that's what we decided on our way through Coromandel.



After a quick hike to Cathedral Cove and a mere pit stop at Hot Water Beach (where, according to Ewan, we stopped, he dug a hole and sat in the water and got really hot...then we left.) we were off to Taupo.




On Monday I turned 27. Not a particularly exciting birthday --old enough to rent a car and have proper job, but not too old to not have a decided career or to have a home or ... anything. (except five boxes at your mom's house!) It's that really uninteresting inbetween birthday that really doesn't amount to much, especially when we were celebrating across the world - so we decided to make things a bit more exciting... by jumping out of planes!




I'd like to say that Ewan was the nervous one - being afraid of heights that would be the logical assumption. But he was cool as a cucumber with his tandem partner while I was completely and utterly harrassed by mine. Brad left the hooks unhooked, joked about holes in the parachute and continued to assure me that it was his first real jump up until we were 15,000 feet above Taupo. Great.



But it was evenmore amazing than we hoped for. We fell out of the plane, experienced 60 seconds of pure free fall at more than 200km/hour and lived to tell about it. We both agreed the scariest part is thatmoment when youre watching the person in front of you sit on the edge of the door... Then thenext moment theyve completely disappeared. Out the plane. As nonchalant as stepping outside your frontdoor ... Yikes!

We landed (a little awkwardly on the tandem)and in the true spirit of our north island adventure, we were back in the caravan and speeding towards our next stop.







Tuesday we hiked to Mount Doom. Actually...we hiked halfway up mount Doom, but that was a mistake.

We woke up before sunrise to do the infamous Tongariro Alpine Crossing after hearing so much about NZ's best day hike and LOTR fan's Mecca. The 19.5 km hike took us up volcanic rocks and through some of the most beautiful and dramatic scenery we'd ever seen, and easily one of the coolest trips we've ever done. Despite the minor set back, when we trekked half an hour up the actual volcano instead of around it, we made prettty good time, finishing in 5.5 hours instead of the suggested 7. Not that we're competitive, or anything...







Next stop - windy Wellington and the ferry to the south island....









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Location:Coromandel, Lake Taupo and Tongariro Crossing