Trekking, aka Tramping and Volcanos

Its been a busy week and a bit since we left Wellington last last Sunday (the 23rd) and headed north, for Ohakune, where you can do the Tongariro Alpine crossing. However, we soon found out that at this time of year you can only do the walk guided, so we opted out. Maybe later in the year as the weather warms up I'll go back and do it, but for now, we made do with a few walks around the base of the mountain.

From Ohakune we headed over to Taupo, with its magnificient lake and adrenaline packed activites like jet boating and skydiving! Our first day there was somewhat overcast and rainy so we opted for some whitewater jetboating action, since it didn't matter if it rained or not, we were going to get wet! Thankfully our second day brought blue skies, which meant skydiving was on! I'd done a skydive before, on my previous trip to New Zealand about 3 years ago, but that was only at 13,000ft... this time I jumped from 15,000ft, longer freefall and more time to panic! Was pretty amazing though, certainly a good way to make you feel alive!

After the adventures of Taupo we had a few calm days in Napier, a very art deco city with some fantastic buildings and then it was off for some more tramping (the NZ word for trekking or hiking) and amazing views at the Te Urewere National Park.

Gisborne was our next big port of call, a little town which to me was very reminiscent of Blenheim, perhaps it's because Gisborne is also another large wine region in NZ. It was nice to have a look around, wasn't really too much to do as it was too cold for any watersports, but when we come back later in the year hopefully there'll be a lot more happening!

We worked our way up the East Cape, through many a bay and little village to our current location of Whakatane (pronounced Fa-ka-ta-ne) where we've spent the last 3 nights. Incidently, we've now spent our most nights in a row in Charlie, last night was our 7th night, he's certainly been good in helping us save on accomodation costs!

Yesterday we did a tour to White Island, home to an active volcano! The boat ride there and back were a little bumpy, but worth it for the walk around the island to see the steam billowing up from vents in the ground, bubbling mud pools and looking over the crater edge to see a bright green steaming lake! Certainly not what I was expecting!

We have just under 2 more weeks of travelling around the North Island and then it'll be time to say goodbye to Holly, who's returning home. But for now, we still have her with us and there are plenty more adventures to be had.