Heading south

We reached Wellington on our slow journey south. Since we wrote last time we've seen some fantastic nature and met some more super friendly people. Everyone here is really friendly! But you're probably mostly interested in photos anyway, so here are some new ones:

Maori culture experience in Rotorua. This is the chief, and his tattoos are real.

Giant supermarket in Taupo where we got some food for the two nights we spent there. Had some tasty lamb...

A trip up along a river to the Huka Falls. It was real mountain biking on small forest tracks and real fun! I got us a bit lost in the forest though, but we made it.

Huka Falls, just north of Taupo.

Hitch-hiking to the town called National Park. It was occasionally boring, but our longest waiting time so far is only 45 minutes, so we shouldn't complain.

Climbing up the Tongariro Crossing, aka Mordor. It was a harsh climb just like expected...

Enjoying the sun (that actually shines also in Mordor, despite film evidence that it's one very dark place) next to the Red Crater.

Roi is considering climbing Mount Doom, actually called Ngauruhue, but after seeing how hard it was for poor Frodo we voted against it. Anyway we didn't have any ring to throw in there.

On our way to the Whanganui River some sheep decided to interfere with our progress. Oh, yes. They have a sh*t lot of sheep here.


The Whanganui river.

We were paddling for three days, and spent the nights in huts along the way.

In the second hut we unexpectedly ended up in a completely authentic Maori cultural experience where we were asked to take part in their traditional welcome, Marae, and join them for dinner, just adding whatever food we had. So we added our instant noodles and pastas and got a real feast in exchange.

After those two days in Mordor, and three days on the river it's nice to be back to showers and internet. Wellington seems like a really nice city and it's almost a shame that we're not more interested in cities, otherwise we might have planned to stay here longer. But tomorrow it's off to South Island for the remaining five weeks of NZ.

Get back to ya from there.

PS. If you didn't know/didn't realise so you can click the pictures to see them bigger :) Enjoy.