Hej, hej allihopa everybody!!
Have had some great times, the last few days. After arriving to the windy city of Wellington on Wednesday and dragging my heavy bags on to the city bus to go to my hostel, I wandered around in the city to find somewhere to eat. To no ones surprise i found a Japanese Restaurant that looked good :-)
Second day I met up with Asa (that's at least the name she travels by in NZ) and went for a "fika". We also went for some outlet shopping and later to meet up with some newly found friends for beer at Mac's Brewery. We also decided to stay for some Wellington Friday nightlife, and also to spend a few hours at the "Te Papa" Museum.
After yet another Japanese meal at a recently opened restaurant, we headed for a Bollywood Club called Fusion, where we met up with Bjorn an Icelandic guy we met the night before. The club was great, right wen we arrived the had a dance show, where a few different people did some different dances like salsa and belly dance. Then the played a mixture of Bollywood music, middle eastern music and salsa for the rest of the night.
Early on Saturday morning me and Asa took the bus to National Park (there is in fact a town on the north Island by that name). Arriving some 5 hours later to the desolate town of National Park and our nice hostel, the weather gods seamed to like us and our spirits was high sins we planned to do the Tongariro Crossing the next day.
Waking up really early next morning to catch the early 7.00 am shuttle bus, that was driving us to the starting point of the track. The walk should take about 8 hours so we where in for a whole day of adventure, the weather looked allot nicer than the forecast and the morning light made the volcanoes look absolutely stunning. The first 1,5 hours of the track was slightly uphill to start with an finished with a quite steep climb up onto the volcano plateau.
The nearest volcano Mt Ngauruhoe with it's 2291 m (Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings filming locations) was an extra challenge that I convinced Asa that we at least should try to climb. The ascent was difficult because it was steep and surface of the volcano was like walking on a stony sand dune. After a little more than 1 hour we where about 3/4 on the way up and decided to stop for lunch, but then some clouds moved in over the summit of the volcano and we also had quite a long way still on the main track to walk so we decided to go down again.
Forty five minutes later we where back on the track again to start the ascent to Red Crater. Reaching the summit of Red Crater the views where amazing, with all the different colours and crater lakes and lava rocks that was spread out beneath us. I took tons of photos and also just stopped everywhere to just take in the surroundings.
Have had some great times, the last few days. After arriving to the windy city of Wellington on Wednesday and dragging my heavy bags on to the city bus to go to my hostel, I wandered around in the city to find somewhere to eat. To no ones surprise i found a Japanese Restaurant that looked good :-)
Second day I met up with Asa (that's at least the name she travels by in NZ) and went for a "fika". We also went for some outlet shopping and later to meet up with some newly found friends for beer at Mac's Brewery. We also decided to stay for some Wellington Friday nightlife, and also to spend a few hours at the "Te Papa" Museum.
After yet another Japanese meal at a recently opened restaurant, we headed for a Bollywood Club called Fusion, where we met up with Bjorn an Icelandic guy we met the night before. The club was great, right wen we arrived the had a dance show, where a few different people did some different dances like salsa and belly dance. Then the played a mixture of Bollywood music, middle eastern music and salsa for the rest of the night.
Early on Saturday morning me and Asa took the bus to National Park (there is in fact a town on the north Island by that name). Arriving some 5 hours later to the desolate town of National Park and our nice hostel, the weather gods seamed to like us and our spirits was high sins we planned to do the Tongariro Crossing the next day.
Waking up really early next morning to catch the early 7.00 am shuttle bus, that was driving us to the starting point of the track. The walk should take about 8 hours so we where in for a whole day of adventure, the weather looked allot nicer than the forecast and the morning light made the volcanoes look absolutely stunning. The first 1,5 hours of the track was slightly uphill to start with an finished with a quite steep climb up onto the volcano plateau.
The nearest volcano Mt Ngauruhoe with it's 2291 m (Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings filming locations) was an extra challenge that I convinced Asa that we at least should try to climb. The ascent was difficult because it was steep and surface of the volcano was like walking on a stony sand dune. After a little more than 1 hour we where about 3/4 on the way up and decided to stop for lunch, but then some clouds moved in over the summit of the volcano and we also had quite a long way still on the main track to walk so we decided to go down again.
Forty five minutes later we where back on the track again to start the ascent to Red Crater. Reaching the summit of Red Crater the views where amazing, with all the different colours and crater lakes and lava rocks that was spread out beneath us. I took tons of photos and also just stopped everywhere to just take in the surroundings.
The summit of Red Crater and the next 2km of the track was the absolute highlight of the Tongariro Crossing and the No 1 thing that made all the effort worth while. After that it was only 3,5 hours of walking left to get back to the car park, which we reached just at same time as the bus was scheduled to pick us up. Back at the hostel I took a very nice shower, and then cooked some pasta with tomato and tuna sauce, that we had together with a nice Sileni Merlot.
Time to Leave the National Park, which demanded that we chartered a private shuttle bus, to get to Taupo. The nice British driver picked us up at 12.30 and drove us door to door. The name of the hostel in Taupo was Rainbow Lodge, a really nice place with good reviews in the BBH (en vandrarhemsorganisation) guide. The big thing to do in Taupo is Skydiving, and lucky enough it was beautiful weather upon our arrival, so we decided to go ahead and book right away.
We still had around two hours to kill and we also needed to have some lunch so we decided to go shopping, my plan was to cook a noodle stir-fry. While preparing the lunch I got a lot of admiring spectators watching closely as i tossed the noodles around in the pan. Asa my Swedish travel mate beamed with pride and said she was so lucky to have a chef as a travel partner.
Just minutes after swallowing the last pieces of our lunch we where of to do the skydive! Arriving we head to decide which altitude we wished to jump from and how many DVD movies or pictures of the jump we wanted. I decided on 15000 feet and the so called "Full Monty" which included 2 DVD:s, 1 CD with pictures and a T-shirt.
Sins we (Me and Asa) decided to do the Full Monty we immediately got geared up and put on the first plane. The thrilling flight up to 15000 ft (ca 4700m) was in a small propeller airplane together with a few other people that jumped of at 12000 ft, the so called "Pöbeln". The jump can just be described as F***ing Amazing!! The best adrenaline rush of my young life! But the 60 seconds of free fall seamed to be over in half the time.
Landing safely a few minutes after jumping from the plane you felt so energized and ready to go back up and jump again, a similar feeling to riding a really good rollercoaster for the first time :-)
Then we had a really good time watching our DVD:s after the jump, Asa especially liked her video.
That pretty much sum's up the experience of the adventures between the 18th to the 23rd of March.
Ha't så Gött!!
Time to Leave the National Park, which demanded that we chartered a private shuttle bus, to get to Taupo. The nice British driver picked us up at 12.30 and drove us door to door. The name of the hostel in Taupo was Rainbow Lodge, a really nice place with good reviews in the BBH (en vandrarhemsorganisation) guide. The big thing to do in Taupo is Skydiving, and lucky enough it was beautiful weather upon our arrival, so we decided to go ahead and book right away.
We still had around two hours to kill and we also needed to have some lunch so we decided to go shopping, my plan was to cook a noodle stir-fry. While preparing the lunch I got a lot of admiring spectators watching closely as i tossed the noodles around in the pan. Asa my Swedish travel mate beamed with pride and said she was so lucky to have a chef as a travel partner.
Just minutes after swallowing the last pieces of our lunch we where of to do the skydive! Arriving we head to decide which altitude we wished to jump from and how many DVD movies or pictures of the jump we wanted. I decided on 15000 feet and the so called "Full Monty" which included 2 DVD:s, 1 CD with pictures and a T-shirt.
Sins we (Me and Asa) decided to do the Full Monty we immediately got geared up and put on the first plane. The thrilling flight up to 15000 ft (ca 4700m) was in a small propeller airplane together with a few other people that jumped of at 12000 ft, the so called "Pöbeln". The jump can just be described as F***ing Amazing!! The best adrenaline rush of my young life! But the 60 seconds of free fall seamed to be over in half the time.
Landing safely a few minutes after jumping from the plane you felt so energized and ready to go back up and jump again, a similar feeling to riding a really good rollercoaster for the first time :-)
Then we had a really good time watching our DVD:s after the jump, Asa especially liked her video.
That pretty much sum's up the experience of the adventures between the 18th to the 23rd of March.
Ha't så Gött!!
Hej,
SvaraRaderaTrevligt att du har hittat lite nya kompisar och en svensk tjej som heter Åsa gillar ju mamma.
Skönt att fallskärmshoppet blev av till slut.
Hur känns det egentligen precis innan man hoppar ut?
Kram mor o far
Fan va gött det låter!
SvaraRaderaNu blir jag allt riktigt avundsjuk, jag vill också göra ett/flera fallskärmshopp :D
Träffat en svensk tjej, trevligt, kan man ju prata lite svenska med...ha ha:-) och Åsa dessutom, vackert namn.
Själv har jag presic börjat mitt påsklov, mamma & pappa kommer idag till Stockholm och hälsar på.
Ha de gött!
Kramar Per