Kiwi Adventure

We are on our third and final week in New Zealand. Leslie and I just finished a three day hike on the famous Kepler track in Fiordland National Park. The hike started just outside of the town of Te Anau before circling Te Anau Lake and climbing high into the mountains. The weather was colder and wetter than we expected. It is, after all, the hottest month of the year in New Zealand, but we were still shivering at various points along the trail. We had planned on spending three nights in the wilderness but ended up booking it yesterday in order to make it back to the trailhead a day early. We are currently waiting out a rainstorm in Te Anau.

Before coming down to the South Island Leslie and I spent about a week and a half traveling around the North Island. We rented a car along with Lydia and Natalie, two other Peace Corps volunteers. Our first stop was Taupo, located on a massive lake right in the middle of the North Island. We ended up staying with a couple of really cool guys, Chris and Mike, who frequently host travelers through the Couchsurfing site. In Taupo we did a bit of hiking, hit some golf balls into the lake- a tourist activity, you win $10,000 if you make a hole in one, and browsed through the many outdoor stores. About one in every three shops in New Zealand is an outdoor supply store, and they are all extremely expensive.

After Taupo we headed to Napier where we did some wine tasting and a bit of hiking. It was significantly drier on that side of the island, which makes sense for a wine-growing region. After Napier we drove all day to make it back to the north part of the island where a music festival was about to start. We stopped again just outside of Taupo to hike Craters of the Moon national monument, a park full of boiling mud holes, geysers, and all sorts of geothermal activity. We spent the night in Thames on the Coromandel penninsula. The next day we arrived SPLORE, the three day music festival that was being held just outside the town of Orere. Everyone attending the event had to camp, so a massive grassy field turned into tent city in a matter of hours. It was a bit chaotic, all these tents literally inches from each other. The atmosphere was extremely relaxed and friendly, though, and we all had a good time. The music was mostly electronic- some rap and some techno. It wasn't exactly the sort of music I would choose to listen too on my own, but it was exciting to feel the energy of the crowd at the mainstage. At the end of the festival we were all pretty tired and dusty. Natalie and Lydia flew back to Fiji after the festival was over, but Leslie and I still had two weeks of travel time. We took the ferry to Waiheke island where Graeme, a friend of ours whom we randomly met in our village in Fiji, was living. We spent a couple of very chill days hanging out on the island, doing some fishing, eating some great Argentinian food courtesy of his roomates, and even skinny dipping at a nude beach! The weather was warm and dry, just what we needed before heading down to cold rainy Fiordland National Park.

We've got about another week here before returning to Fiji. I'll post some pictures when I get the chance. Leslie is currently posting some photos on Facebook.