This is a very long post, but I’ve done a lot in the last 5 days and haven’t had time, or internet, to update this blog.  But do read it, because it was a lot of fun to live it.

    After a quick night in Auckland, Dustin and I used the Nakedbus to travel down to Rotorua, about 4 hours away, and found a cheap hostel in the middle of town.  The staff told us that they were having a barbeque on the deck patio, so we grabbed some lamb sausage and steak and had dinner and watched the sunset outside.  We sat around with most of the hostel staff, who themselves are only passing through New Zealand for a few weeks, and listened to stories from Germany, Scotland, Norway, Holland, England, and of course NZ. 

    The next morning, we had to find a way to get to Waitopu, a geothermal park about 25 km away.  Buses ran from the town center, but cost $35 a person.  After flipping a coin, Dustin and I decided to try the free option.  After 20 minutes of walking to highway 5, we got picked up by two 20 year old guys on summer break who were headed to Wellington.  After they dropped us off at the park, we found out we needed to drive to the nearby geyser, as there was no walkway.  We put out our thumbs once more and got picked up by the first car - a 40 year old Canadian woman on a three month break from work.  The park was a lot like Yellowstone, but it only took a few hours to see the whole thing.  Thankfully, our Canadian friend was there to take us to the local mudpits and also back to Rotorua. 

    Still eager to explore, we convinced our friend from the night before, Siobhan (Irish name, pronounced Shuh-vawn), to come with us to the local redwood forest.  The whole area was incredible – those trees are freaking huge and block out almost all sunlight.  It made me really want to go to northern California when I get back to the states.  We hiked around for a few hours and were completely pooped afterwards, but still had an hour long walk back to the hostel ahead of us.  Again, we popped out the thumb, and again got picked up on the first car that drove by, this time by a Kiwi woman just heading on to the next town. 

    The three of us were starving, so we went to the local store and rounded up everything we needed for my grandmother’s chili and my Wyoming cornbread.  The hostel had no measuring cups, and nobody knew what the hell a cup or teaspoon was, so we had to eyeball everything, and thankfully it all turned out alright.  Besides Dustin and me, nobody had ever had cornbread, so it was good to expose them to a little southern cooking.  After dinner, we played Texas hold ‘em with the same crew from the night before.  As we played, a storm rolled in and the rain came down hard, and everything was right in the world. 

    After a restful morning in Rotorua, we took the bus down to Taupo, but immediately hitched a ride to Turangi, this time by a 45 year old computer programmer who was into taekwondo.  By staying in Turangi rather than Taupo, we were able to get to the Tongariro Alpine Crossing much quicker and cheaper.  The next morning, one of the hostel workers took us to the trail head.  The alpine crossing usually takes 6 to 8 hours, with a 2 to 3 hour detour about midway through the crossing to the summit of Mt. Ngaurohoe – Mount Doom.  Obviously, this was a must. 

    It was raining and foggy the whole way up Mount Doom, and visibility was down to less than 40 feet.  It was some of the hardest hiking I’ve ever done – impossibly steep with shifting sands and sharp pumice sliding around everywhere.  About 20 minutes up, I remembered to put some sunscreen on my hands.  I happened to squirt out too much, so I wiped the extra on a nearby rock.  That proved to be a God send later.  Anyways, we reached the summit after an hour and a half of hard work, took our pictures, yelled “Isildur, cast it into the flame!” and headed back down, which wasn’t easy either.  Because of the nature of the rocks, we couldn’t find the trail that we had taken, so we started going towards the left.  We were essentially sliding blind down the side of a volcano.  Thankfully, Dustin had set trail points on his GPS as we ascended which we were able to head towards, but the GPS was a bit shaky and unreliable.  There were a few points where I was getting very frustrated, either from falling or being lost, but God opened up the clouds for a few seconds – just enough for us to see part of the trail that we had walked hours before. 

    We then knew the way and got back to the base of Mount Doom and started off towards the rest of the alpine crossing.  The trail was very steep again, which was a bit disheartening, but we kept on.  Then it going got real hard again, as hard as Mount Doom.  We went along for about 20 minutes when I saw it – a white smudge on a nearby rock on the trail – that damn sunscreen.  We had already been there, which meant we were going in the wrong direction.  At this point, we were livid.  The weather was crap and we were tired and couldn’t see anything.  But we went back and finally found the rest of the trail. 

    At this point, we were also way behind schedule and were worried that we wouldn’t make it to the end in time to get a ride back from our guy at the hostel.  So for the rest of the trail, about 15 km, we walked as fast as we could.  It was beautiful, very beautiful, but we didn’t have time to sit and enjoy it.  I thought we were home free after the last peak – instead, we had about 10 km of downhill walking in front of us, and at double the pace I would have liked.  There wasn’t much talking those last two hours as our feet and knees pounded on down.  We made it to the end of the trailhead 8 hours after starting, but it felt like 16 hours of it.  By the time we got back to the hostel, we were done.  We treated ourselves to some (crappy) Chinese food and then slept. 

    The next morning, we were on a bus to Wellington.  Just like that, we were out of the small town of Turangi and into the city.  We quickly made friends with a Kiwi guy in our hostel and participated in a speed dating thing at the backpackers’ bar.  Speed dating is already awkward, but I really don’t have much to talk about with girls from Sweden, Germany, or France who have a limited English vocabulary, so we got out of there after 3 or 4 rounds. 

One of our German roommates, a German girl named Michaela, told me that McDonald’s has free wifi, so I went with her.  And so here I sit, typing on my laptop in a McDonald’s with a German girl on Valentine’s night.  Romantic, I know.  She just acted out sneezing and asked me what the English word for it was.  I said, “sneezing.”  This relationship is going somewhere.

For the first time, in the midst of the frustrating alpine crossing, I missed home a little bit.  It’s weird to think that I can’t just go home tomorrow, but that home really is behind.  But I have to put my money where my mouth is, especially all this talk of being lonely and alone.  This really is an opportunity to grow, to see God in a big way, and to do something that I will look back on and be thankful for.  I'm excited to see the south island next, but it's been good to slow down every now and then and just enjoy where I am!  At the same time though, I’m really bummed that I won’t have Chick-Fil-A for like 5 months… Real talk, I need somebody to mail me some Dr. Pepper...