Knice guy

Once upon a time there were two little boys who liked to play with knives. Everywhere they went they brought along their trusted pocket knives and brandished them at every opportunity. They saw a great many things with their knives as companions, but now they had come across something special, something new. They had stumbled upon a flyer depicting the ancient and sacred art of knife making, on it was written in big red letters: "Make your own knife!"
This had the boys bubbling with excitement and they knew they couldn't resist the pamphlet's hypnotic charm. For many nights they laid awake dreaming of the knife they would make and how it would be the best knife in the world. And then, finally, the time had come!
They had to wake up early, really early "but waking up at 8:15 was worth it if you got to make your own knife!" thought the boys.
As they were still finishing their morning routine they were approached by a woman, "Are you two the ones making your own knives today?" she asked. "Yes, that's us" the boys replied as they dropped everything they were doing and hurried to the woman's car.
The car was old and dusty with an equally old and dusty dog (but not any less cute) sitting in the back seat. "Don't mind the dog" the woman said "He's old and deaf, but very friendly." The boys didn't mind. What one of the boys did find strange however was the fact that a large slab of rock was sitting on the floor of the car, but he didn't dwell on this for very long. After all, it was almost time to start making knives!
20 Minutes later the boys arrived at an old farm house with a forge outside and a whole bunch of anvils scattered around. There were a lot more people standing there, waiting just as anxiously as the boys for their chance to make knives. The woman's husband was standing in the middle of the group of people making smalltalk while he waited for everyone to arrive. He was wearing a brown blacksmith's apron and looked quite old with his grey hair and over sized glasses, but he sounded quite friendly. "Right" he said as he saw that everyone was here "If you'll follow me to those chairs we'll give you all a shirt and a pair of glasses to wear." The man walked almost like a penguin, without bending his knees, and the little boy wondered what was wrong with him. "Maybe he has two wooden legs" he thought. He was handed one of the ugliest shirts on earth and a pair of safety glasses to put on and a piece of tape that would serve as a name tag. Suddenly the boy noticed that the old man and woman were also wearing name tags and that they were in fact called "Steven" and "Robyn".
After leading the group back to the forge Steven gave some instructions on what was to be done to make a knife from a blank piece of steel. He gave everyone their very own piece of steel to work with and fired up the forge.
"We're going to stick our metal into the forge until it's red hot, being very careful not to take it too far, because that will ruin the metal" Steven said. "Now, could I borrow your steel for a second there Rob?" he asked as he took Rob's piece of metal and stuck it in the forge. "Do you see how Rob holds his metal straight as he pushes it into the forge, checking every now and then if his metal is the right colour?
"Beautifully done Rob, you did that perfectly" he said as he gave Rob back his piece of metal. "It's almost as if you've done that before!"
"The trick to hammering your metal into the right shape is to hammer it while it's hot and to hit it with the centre of your hammer, not the edges"
As Steven was giving these instructions the little boy was getting more nervous by the second. "What if I mess it up and ruin my blade!" he thought. Luckily, he didn't have to go first. After seeing 4 people do their parts before him he felt a little more confident, even if he would mess it up slightly, Steven would be able to fix it without problems.
Very carefully he stuck his piece of steel in the forge making sure to check on it regularly to see if it showed that bright orange glow yet. When it finally turned orange he quickly pulled it out of the forge and onto the anvil. He started to hammer and hammer as if his life depended on it, making very sure to hit it with the centre of the hammer only. The hammer rained down in loud ringing bangs as at least half of the blows hit the anvil instead of the blade. Not because the boy couldn't aim, but because he was being a little over-cautious to hit exactly the right spot on the blade.
After a while he stuck the blade back in the forge till it turned orange and then banged away to heart's content. Soon his blows were getting less frequent and sweat was starting to form on his brown, he was getting tired. "You can just put your hammer down and take a breather if you want" said Robyn, and so the boy did. He decided this was a good time to ask the expert's opinion on his progress and called over to Steven. Steven shuffled over, picked up the blade and said "Good job there Tim, looks like this one is done!" and he proceeded to hammer a curve in it for the handle to go on.
A little perplexed the boy said thanks and walked to put his blade in the bucket of water, he had thought he was only about halfway through hammering his metal. Afterwards Robyn stripped the metal grip off the blade and gave it back to the boy, saying he should start grinding the side of it on 4 different belt grinders. After using the first grinder he saw the metal turning bright, but he didn't notice any difference on the other grinders. Nevertheless he did what he was told and soon found himself standing with a slightly blade shaped piece of metal with a shiny centre part.
"The reason we grinded the centre" Steven said "Was because this makes it easier for the brass decoration to stick to the blade."
He then told everyone to glue two pieces of brass to either side of their blade and then drill two holes all the way through. After some more glue they inserted some brass pins and hammer them until the brass was fitted into place. Then they had to cut the handles out of a piece of wood and glue them onto the blade as well. Some more brass pins ensured that the wood was secure. After everyone had their handle glued to the metal Steven explained the group how they had to finish their handle before lunch. After everyone had their wood grinded down to roughly handle shape they were told to fill all the gaps with epoxy resin as fast as possible. "Especially the back crack!"
Then it was time for lunch and the boys feasted on their first cheese sandwich in what seemed like ages. After everyone went back for seconds and the dog finally decided he wouldn't be able to get any more food the group went for a walk. During this walk one boy remarked to the other "I wonder if we're going anywhere specific or if we're just going to walk the dog as a group" the other boy wondered exactly the same.
After the "walk" they went to the super swing. The super swing was a huge contraption and looked rather intimidating. "Why don't you go first Tim." Robyn said. The little boy complied and sat on the swing as five men were grabbing hold of the rope attached to it. At Robyn's mark they all ran backwards and pulled on the rope as hard as they could. The little boy went higher and higher and the ground got farther and farther away. Just before the people on the ground released the rope he felt like he was hanging horizontally and then went soaring down at high speed. Afterwards it was time for the other little boy to ride the swing and he too was impressed by the height he reached. None of the others seemed keen on riding the swing so they went back to the house where the boys passed the rest of the time by throwing axes and metal stars at a huge wooden target.
When Steven was done grinding off the excess metal off everyone's knife (this was too dangerous for the people to do themselves) the people collected their knives again. This time they were told to grind the blade down ever so slightly on a number of different grinders to achieve a mirror like polish. When everyone was done on the grinders they were told to go out to the front of the house where a number of chairs was waiting for them. Here they were to grind down the last blemishes off the blade manually using different grains of sandpaper.
As everyone was sitting there grinding away at their blade, looking out over the sea the little boy remarked to his friend "I imagine this is what it must have been like for people that got sent to sea to recover in the old days. Though I imagine their activities were a little less lethal"
Finally when all the blades were shining Steven lead them back to the other side of the house. "Just a final layer for the handle and we'll be having champagne!" he said as he showed the group how to cover their handle with a waterproof finish.
After everyone was done the group went inside and waited for their glass of champagne. As Robyn brought out a big tray filled with wine glasses Steven confessed to a secret: "It's not really champagne he said, it's made here on the westcoast. We call it berrypagne." As someone remarked that it tasted quite good he said "Thanks! We actually make it ourselves. What vintage is this dear?" he asked Robyn "I think this is the 2:30 vintage"
"There you go" Steven said "It's had about 1,5 hours to mature in the plastic bottle, which is important! You see, what we do is: We carefully select a bottle of wine from the local store (the cheapest one) and... well looking at that soda machine bottle you can probably guess the rest!"
Everyone laughed at this and finished their glass. The two boys were really starting to feel the effects of the alcohol and being very careful not to stab anyone with their brand new knife they joined the rest for a group photo outside.
Feeling slightly tipsy they thanked Steven and Robyn for a wonderful day and headed back with a huge smile on their face and their very own knives in their hand.

Tropical paradise

After resting in Picton for two more days we headed out for Nelson. It didn't take us long to catch a ride, 3 girls turned around to pick us up after initially driving past us. They had a typical backpackers van with a bed in the back instead of seats, but this was no problem for us and so we set out. About halfway to Nelson the girl behind the wheel says that she's starting to run low on gass and that we should keep a lookout for a gas station. 5 Minutes later she says we're REALLY low on gas with probably enough gas to last us another 10 minutes. 10 Minutes later we're still in the middle of the back-country with not a single structure in sight, let alone a gas station, and she's really starting to panic now. I shoot jasper a quick glance and see that he's thinking the same as me, this sort of stuff only happens to us.
Surprisingly 10 minutes later we're still going strong and are even approaching civilisation again with a spot of luck we might even make it to a gas station! And sure enough we make it without so much as a stutter from the engine; girls get way too excited over silly things like being low on gas. . .
They drop us off in a Holiday Park in Nelson, which was about 20 minutes walking from city centre despite being the closest one around. We pitched our tent in the concrete-like ground, unable to force our pegs in deeper than about 3 centimeters and praying that it'll hold.
After leaving our tent in this mildly unstable position we head to town to buy some groceries and check out the local activities. We notice a flyer saying the largest flying fox in New Zealand is here in nelson so we call them up and arrange for pickup for the next day.
The following day we head to the i-centre to await pickup and when, 30 minutes after the agreed on time, they still haven't picked us up we decide to call them and see what's up. They apologise and say their van was full (or something like that) and that someone would come around to pick us up in 15 minutes.
20 Minutes later we finally get picked up and eventually driven up to the top of a hill where we get strapped in some hanging seats and released to soar off the mountain. Even though we reached speeds of up to 85 km/h it wasn't really all that exciting. Fun? Yes. Worth 75 dollars? Maybe not. But still, it was an interesting experience and gave us something to do for the day.
After we bought some lunch in the supermarket we headed back to the campsite where I sat down in the kitchen to heat my pizza bread while Jasper went back to the tent to grab cutlery. After 2 minutes Jasper comes back empty handed and says "Are you coming? We're gonna have to file a report to the police, they broke into our tent and stole my netbook." The bastards had turned our bags completely inside out leaving our belongings scattered through the tent. It seemed that all they took was Jasper's netbook and my universal adapter and cellphone charger, perhaps mistaking them for the adapter for jasper's netbook.
We stayed in nelson for a few more days to file an official report and gather all the required information regarding the netbook to file for insurance.
Luckily we didn't have anything special stored on the netbook, we had all the pictures either on our cameras or posted on the internet and there wasn't much room left for anything else.

After a few days we set out for Motueka from where we wanted to go into the Abel Tasman National Park for a multi-day kayak trip. We found the Holiday park there to be a lot more luxurious than the one in Nelson, they even had a heated pool and a jacuzzi (which we could use for free with our top 10 membership card). We decided to relax here for a few days before heading off to Marahau from where we would hop on kayaks and into the park.
We booked everything from the Motueka i-centre and to my surprise jasper suggested we do a 5-day trip (which seemed to be the maximum amount of days you could hire for) as he didn't seem to be too keen on kayaking when I suggested it a month earlier.
We also stocked up on supplies while we still had acces to a supermarket, which meant lots of canned food (baked beans and canned spaghetti, yummy!) and food bars.
After spending a night in Marahau we headed to the kayak company and received instructions on how to pack our stuff so that they stayed dry and how to handle the kayak in different sorts of weather. I was in the front and jasper in the back, operating the rudder; it seemed my only special task was to break the waves "The person in front is going to get wet" he said. . . great!
We headed to the beach where he made us paddle around for a bit to show we paid attention to his instructions and then headed out for ourselves off to our first campsite! The weather wasn't particularly enjoyable when we set out and it promised to get a lot worse before it got any better. As we rounded the first set of cliffs we beared the full brunt of the wind and waves started to crash into us, occasionally splashing over the boat and into my face. The scenery was beautiful but the incessant rain meant we weren't able to take any pictures nor enjoy it to the fullest; we'd just have to pray the weather would improve over the next days.
After only about 2 hours of paddling we arrived at the campsite, and not a moment too soon; my muscles were aching and my shoulders hurt from the unusual motion. The rain was still coming down in streams so we had no choice but to set up our camp as fast as possible and pray it didn't get too wet. After the tent was up we explored the rest of the camp, which consisted of one tap with water you had to treat or boil before you could drink it and two toilets the were basically holes in the ground with a cabin over it; they smelled horrible.
We spent the next 2 hours or so reading in our tent, where it was at least dry. By the time the rain had stopped and it was safe to come out we saw that there were a lot more tents around us. After exploring the area around the campsite and walking up to a lookout point we decided to make dinner, forced to eat it on the table furthest away from our tent because the other occupants had claimed the other tables. They'd piled all their stuff on them so we couldn't use them despite the fact they weren't actually sitting at them. At dusk we brushed our teeth and headed to bed, though we wouldn't be able to sleep until the americans from the tents next to us finally shut up and went to bed 2 hours later. The following morning we quickly walked to a neighbouring hut where we replenished our drinking water, before packing up our stuff in our kayaks and heading out again. The weather had increased significantly, despite the fact that there was still a strong breeze it was warm and sunny. This lifted our spirits and made us forget about our aching for a while at least.
The landscape looked even better in the bright sun, with blue sea wherever you looked and golden beaches scattered all around the coast. On the way to our second camp we passed an island that doubled as a seal colony and stopped there to take some pictures. The still rather large waves meant that it was extremely difficult to take sharp pictures though, so unfortunately most of the pictures turned out extremely blurred.
As we passed a river inlet we decided to paddle into it, here the water was extremely calm and jasper even managed to climb out of the kayak at one point to answer nature's call.
At about 2 in the afternoon we reached our second campsite, which was situated in a beautiful bay with gorgeous sandy beach all around it. This time it was much more enjoyable to pitch our tent, seeing as there was no need to hurry in order to keep the inside dry. Afterwards we explored the campsite and found that this one even had a sink! Though the water still wasn't drinkable. The toilets were the same, except for the fact that these had wasps inside them, angry wasps.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out and climbing over the rocks. Eventually the other campers started to trickle in, including the very same Americans that annoyed us so much the day before, this time we'd claimed our table before they could though.
After some more canned food for dinner (and a slight crisis with wet matches) we dozed off and read while the sun was slowly starting to sink behind the hills in the distance. When it got too dark to read we turned in again, and though the Americans were just as noisy as the day before we were now tired enough to sleep through it.
The third day the weather was perfect and sea was very calm, so we even managed to snap a few decent pictures; though it was still hard to get the horizon straight, with the kayak bobbing up and down all the time. We passed another seal colony, though this one was significantly bigger and there were a lot more seals on it. We explored another river (almost getting stranded in the process) but were too tired to do much more and so headed towards our next campsite. This one was even more luxurious with flush flush toilets and a special shelter for cooking! There were still a lot of wasps but none of them in the toilets fortunately. The beach was pristine and the sea was just the right temperature for swimming.
The next we gently started to make our way back to marahau, stopping at one more campsite before we'd reach the town again the next day. Our muscles were really starting to hurt now and we were very grateful when we finally arrived at the campsite, the one where we gathered water on our first day. This one was the most luxurious of them all with flush toilets and drinkable water!
As we were about to set up our tent I spotted a guy and a girl walking to the toilets and i knew I'd seen them before somewhere. Just as I was telling Jasper that I thought those were the people that gave us a ride to Whitianga way back when we were still in coromandel they turned as well and said "Hey, didn't we give you guys a ride a few months back?" We caught up with them and exchanged stories before they headed off to the beach and we set up our tent.
The last day seemed like it was the longest (though in truth it might have been the shortest) of the entire trip, our muscles were starting to protest heavily and the going was starting to become tough. Because we had to make a long stretch through open water, rather than staying close to the shore it seemed like we were going even slower than we actually were. By the time we landed on the beach we decided to just beach the kayak and quickly go to the shop to buy food and an ice-cream. As we returned from the shop and looked to see if our kayak was still there we noticed that it was no longer fully on the beach was starting to get surrounded by water; the tide was coming up a lot faster than we'd thought. I made a quick run for the kayak (it was my idea to go to the shop in the first place) and waded the last few meters through knee deep water before arriving at the kayak just as it was beginning to drift.
We dragged it up further on the beach and called the kayak company who said that they'd pick it up at about 4:30, which meant that we'd have to either wait for about 4 hours or just pick up the most important stuff and walk 20 minutes back to the camp; we did the latter ofcourse.
As we were enjoying a nice hot shower after 5 days of salt water I really noticed how tired my arms were when I almost didn't have enough strenght left to wash my hair.
That afternoon we picked up our bags from the kayak company and set up our tent. We decided we'd stay in the Motueka top 10 Holiday park with it's jacuzzi and heated pool for 2 more days to recover before making our way further along the west coast.

Pictures:
http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%2023%20februari/

Into the dark, cold depths of the sea

After a boring 3 hour boat trip we arrived in Picton on the south island, only to find out that someone had mistaken our cooler bag for theirs. Goodbye pans, condiments, food and more. Even though our trip on the south island didn't start off too great the weather was perfect and after a quick snack at the Dutch Bakkerij we found that the campsite was one of the best we'd been at so far and not expensive at all. After we pitched our tent we went for a stroll through the small town. I happened to have read that one of the largest diveable wrecks in the world (the Mikhail Lermontov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Mikhail_Lermontov) was very close to Picton, so we stopped by one of the dive shops to see if the ship was within our maximum allowed depth of 18m. Turns out it wasn't. We had heard from someone we met earlier in our travels that an advanced open water course was very expensive; in excess of $1000, but still we decided to ask how much they charged for the advanced course. Surprisingly it was only $500, which was very tempting, but we decided to think about it some more before deciding anything.
As we returned to our tent we agreed that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and that we'd go for it.
The next day we booked our course and found that we could even choose to do part of our training dives at the Lermontov, which we ofcourse did. This meant however that we'd have to wait for over a week before we could begin our course, and jasper suggested that maybe we could do a couple of our training dives in the week before that. So it was settled, we'd have our Navigation and Peak performance Buoyancy dives on monday and then the rest of our dives at the lermontov during the weekend. This left us with 3 days before the first dives, which I hoped was enough to get rid of my cold. I also sauntered into a 2nd hand booksale that day and bought more books than I probably should have. . .
After watching a lot of movies on the movie channel and hanging out in the pool for days it was finally time for our first couple of dives. We were both slightly nervous, because it had been about 2 months since our last dive and I was still a bit congested (this can cause problems with clearing your ears).
After gathering our gear and loading them into the van we headed out to the harbour, where we walked into the sea with our gear on. Turns out we had nothing to be worried about, the dives were going to be shallow (only about 9m deep) and my ear wasn't clearing as easily as normal but I still didn't have any problems with it.
First we had to do our peak performance dive, which was supposed to help us increase our buoyancy control, but since we'd already done our initial training in thick wetsuits we had no trouble achieving and maintaining neutral buoyancy. It wasn't until after we had to swim through a hoop that I suddenly shot up a few meters and surfaced. This wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I was now experiencing what they call a reverse block, where the pressure in your ear canal is greater than the pressure of the surroundings and can't be released, it was very painful. I lingered at the surface for a bit thinking our instructor would come after me, but apparently she didn't see me shoot up. Eventually I spotted their bubbles and swam over to their locations before descending again.
We had so much air left in our tanks after the first dive that Andrea (our instructor) figured we'd probably be able to do the second dive off the same tank. First up we had to line up our compasses to one off the boats before descending and trying to find that ship's anchor chain. Jasper took off and Andrea followed him, my compass however showed a different direction so I was unsure whether I was supposed to go off on my own or keep following Jasper and Andrea. Eventually Andrea stopped while jasper continued, I tried to signal to her that my compass showed a different direction but I don't think she understood. Jasper eventually returned to us as well and we headed off to a different point from where we were supposed to swim in a square pattern. Jasper headed off first and I followed soon after, counting 5 fin kicks in one direction, readjusting my compass and counting 5 kicks in another direction until I'd completed the square. During the last 5 kicks I kept desperately looking for the red sponge that Andrea pointed at as the start of the course but I couldn't find it. Thinking I probably didn't pass it yet I continued to swim in the direction when i suddenly felt a tug on one of my fins. Apparently I had swam so close by Andrea that my fin hit her, but I never noticed. Together we waited for Jasper but he didn't show, so we went back to shore where we found jasper waiting. Apparently jasper hadn't seen Andrea make the square signal and thought we were just heading back to shore. So he had to do the square pattern again, and I was to be his safety buddy; unfortunately by this time our tanks had gone so empty that we no longer had enough wait to stay submerged so jasper was forced to do his square on the surface. Afterwards we had to swim 30m to determine our average distance per fin kick and our average underwater speed.
After updating our diver logs we agreed to do the knowledge reviews the next day, so that evening we had some studying to do. The next day we met one of the people going with us to the lermontov lodge over the weekend, a polish man named Marek; He'd just finished his advanced open water the week before and was going for his master scuba diver. After completing the knowledge reviews we were free to do whatever we wanted for the next 4 days, which included a lot of TV and hanging out at the pool. We did meet some nice girls that day, starting with the youngest one whom we engaged in a fierce battle with foam pool toys. Afterwards we met her older sisters whom were both very nice, we even got the oldest one to join in on our water based battle-royale.
Then the day had come, we packed our tent and headed off to the dive shop where, due to a small misunderstanding, we had to gather all our gear once more.
The other people driving up to the lodge with us that day were Marek, a dutch guy everyone called 'Nine' (he was actually called Sjoerd) and an irish guy.
The road up to the lodge was very windy and took about 3 hours, by the time we got to the lodge the sun was going down. The lodge itself was surprisingly well maintained and luxurious, though the beds were just standard bunk beds, there were comfy couches and a tv. After a nice dinner we quickly discussed what we were going to do the next day and headed to bed.
After sleeping on cold hard matts for months you'd expect one to be able to sleep well in a proper bed, but I couldn't get myself to fall asleep. Still, the next the nerves made sure I was wide awake and ready for my dives.
After a short boat ride we reached the lermontov, or well the location where it sank. It was in the middle of a fairly shallow inlet only about 40 meters deep, from the surface it was hard to believe that a ship so big could be hidden in the water here, but apparently on some days when the water is exceptionally clear you can see it lying there from the surface. After kitting up and doing our buddy checks me, Jasper, Marek and Andrea jumped in the water and we slowly descended down the mooring line that was attached to the front of the ship. Our first was to be our "Deep Dive", our first dive deeper than 18 meters. We would first do some excersise, which weren't more than simple observations of change in colour and water temperature. Then we would receive a tour along the outside of the ship, going past cranes, the bridge, the radio antennas, the exhaust funnel and some of the windows on the side of the ship. Because the ship was on it's side and the visibility was poor I found it very hard to recognise any of these features. Andrea had also warned us that Marek was a bit reckless and annoying while diving, and during this first dive we noticed this for ourselves; he would stay annoyingly close to you so that you'd keep hitting him with your fins and he'd swim all over the place (including over you) at one point knocking my regulator (the thing with which you breathe) out of my mouth. He also kicked up silt and destroyed the visibility where-ever he went.
After we surfaced we headed back to the lodge for some hot dogs and bread. We discussed what we saw and what we were going to do for our next dive. Initially we were going to penetrate the wreck on this dive, but it seemed Andrea wasn't comfortable with Marek just yet and so we agreed to just do an exterior dive.
After descending along the mooring line once more Marek did an excersise for one of his advanced courses which was supposed to determine if he was suffering from Nitrogen Narcosis or not. This is a condition which sometimes occurs during deeper dives and is comparable to being slightly drunk. He had to do the same excersise on the surface and compare the time it took him to complete it, it took him 3 times longer underwater so it's safe to say he was slightly narced. After a tour along the windows on the side of the ship, past a bar and an arcade hall we headed back to the bridge. Here it seemed Andrea had decided to take us for a short trip inside the ship as she asked everyone if we were comfortable going inside. After we confirmed we were she signalled that she was going in first, then Jasper, then me and finally Marek. After she had gone through the small window Jasper tried to follow but Marek tried to follow at the same time causing them to bump into each other and into the window. After backing up jasper managed to get in without interference from Marek and as I was about to go through I noticed that Marek was getting ready to go in as well, so I signalled to him that it was in fact my turn and went in. Inside it was pitch black and it wasn't until after a second or two that your eyes adapted to the light enough to be able to see anything. Inside there were still consoles standing and control boards hanging from the wall behind them. After a few seconds we emerged from the top (or rather the side) of the bridge and headed back to the mooring line.
After a short trip back to the lodge to fill up our empty tanks we headed back out again to do our photography dive. First we went into the Nevski bar where I took a picture of one of the stools, the rest of the bar was too dark and murky to make decent pictures of. Afterwards Andrea took us to somewhere on the stern of the ship, while she and Marek headed off to do a navigation excersise, where we could take pictures and do what we pleased for a while. Only a second after they left they came back however and Andrea took us to a different spot, we didn't understand why but later she told us that marek had kicked up so much silt that it would have been impossible for us to take clear pictures. We took turns taking pictures of each other and of fish, not always as succesful as we'd like to have been. Due to the poor light conditions it was very hard to take clear pictures underwater and because the fish swam around so much it was hard to capture them. At one point Jasper posed with what looked like an underwater spore pod, and afterwards signalled for me to do the same so he could take a picture of me. At this point I decided it would be fun to have a picture without that ever present regulator in my mouth, so I took it out as jasper was aiming the camera. Since the camera has to allow for more time to let enough light in it takes a few seconds for it to take a picture and I remember thinking "Hurry up. . . Hurry up!!" After the picture was taken I quickly popped my regulator back in my mouth and breather that lovely air, jasper laughed and signalled I was crazy, I laughed as well and looked at the picture. After a while longer we had run out of things to take pictures of and we starting to run short on air, we decided to wait a bit longer before we'd make our way to the surface alone and after jasper did a salto I saw Andrea and Marek approaching. With minimal air reserves we made it back to the boat.
The next day Andrea was to clean the hut and so couldn't escort us around the wreck, fortunately Nine offered to take us on a tour. After landing on the boat he swiftly took us to the stern and led us into the covered pool, which was pitch black, and past the bar. He then led us through the wintergarden, which was essentially a corridor with a lot of glass windows now, the way the light reflected off the algae stained windows was magical. After we went up a set of stairs we reached one of the balconies and were in open water once more. He took us past the funnel (this time I did recognise it) and through the bridge (all the way through the bridge this time), he then pointed us to the mooring line before heading off on his own treasure hunt.
The next dive was just going to be me, Jasper and Marek. Because Marek had the best computer it was decided he was going in the lead, after hearing this Andrea and Brent, the owner of the dive shop, got very nervous and brent told Marek to be very careful and that "Their life is in your hands!", all very confidence inspiring. We were just going to head to the gash that sank the ship and maybe, if we had enough air, to the propellors. After we landed on the ship marek proceeded to head in the wrong direction and I had to stop him and turn him the right way. As we followed the side of the ship down deeper and deeper visibility dropped to a meter max, we could see each other and the side of the ship and that was about all. the damage we were told, was at about 27 meters deep, but marek simply plummited down the ship and soon ended up at about 32 meters deep. After I signalled to him that he was too deep and we went back up to 27m we checked our air supplies; I had almost used up half my tank through stressing out so much, and that despite the fact that I had a ridiculously well filled tank. As we were asking each other how much air we had left I suddenly noticed that the ship was gone, I couldn't see it anymore! I signalled this to the others and swiftly headed back where I'd last seen it, one fin kick later and I almost crashed head first into it, just to give you an idea of what the visibility was like. We levelled at 27 meters and starting heading towards the stern of the ship, when we passed under un arch (I think it was a supporting strut) I looked back to find that I couldn't see jasper anymore and in the second it took me to stop and look back I found that I almost couldn't see marek anymore either. I quickly caught up to marek and together we headed back; fortunately jasper had borrowed a light from Nine for the penetration dive we did earlier and we soon spotted him again. After swimming back a bit more I suddenly noticed a black shadow under me, the gash. Ofcourse Marek didn't notice it and swam past it at his murderous tempo; we pulled him back and checked out the hole. Afterwards we decided it was a good time to head back to the surface and abandon all attempts to find the propellors. When we got a bit higher up the visibility increased dramatically and we could see where we were again. Marek seemed a bit lost however and as we reached the roof of the bridge he stopped and almost seemed to want to go a few divers we saw swimming a bit deeper to ask for directions. After I indicated we had to go over the side of the ship he followed me and soon we found the mooring line and made our ascent. The dive only took about 20 minutes but it felt like an eternity and we had all used up far more air than we should have for so short a dive.
With this last stressful dive survived we could look back on a succesful dive trip and could proudly claim that we were now Advanced Open Water Divers.

Back to Wellington

We set off from Waitomo caves slightly pessimistic, seeing as there were only a few people actually living in this town and our last experiences with hitch-hiking from there weren't exactly great. However, about 2 minutes after we started a car stopped and took us to the next city out of Waitomo where it would be much easier to catch a ride.
The driver was the owner of the restaurant in Waitomo and he mentioned that Peter jackson and Guillermo del Toro were having dinner in his restaurant in a few days to discuss their plans for the upcoming Hobbit movies. Apparently at least part of it is going to be filmed in Waitomo Caves.
He said he knew a good spot for hitch-hiking and that he'd drop us off there. Unfortunately this spot turned out to be horrible, just after a corner and on the top of a hill. It took us a bit longer than usual to find a ride here, but after about 30 minutes an Englishman picked us up and said he'd take us to Taumarunui where he was going to buy some groceries before continuing to a town called National park. he said he'd probably take about 30 minutes and that we could either wait for him there or try to continue without him. In the end we agreed that we'd try to continue but that if we were still there when he was done with his groceries that he'd pick us up. Seeing as we were at the start of the town we didn't expect to get picked up at all, but we gave it a go anyway. After about 20 minutes a car stopped for us, smiling we walked up to it, but inside wasn't what we hoped to see. The car was missing it's backseats and was filled with junk, there was a chainsaw in the back and a circular saw in the passenger seat. The driver looked unclean and he was missing half his teeth. He said something we couldn't understand so we just said that we had too much stuff with us and that we wouldn't fit in his car. At this he said that he'd ring some friends that would be able to pick us up and take us wherever we wanted to go. This had us worried and we were praying for the English guy to pick us up fast. Luckily he did, and before any of that rednecks friends dropped by as well. On the way to national park he said he knew a nice spot in the railway called Raurimu Spiral. It was supposed to be an impressive feat in railway engineering, but from the lookout we couldn't see anything; the vegetation hid the railway from sight but we'll just assume it was very impressive indeed.
He dropped us off in National park, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. By then it was starting to get late in the afternoon and we were still quite a while away from Wanganui which was the nearest big town. It took us quite a while before we got another ride, and the burning sun wasn't exactly helping us. This time we got picked up by a farmer who was going to check up on some of his farm about 30 minutes up the road. He was a very nice guy and he let us have some carrots and potatoes from his field, but this ride left us stranded in the middle of nowhere as the sun was slowly beginning it's descent. The cars were racing past us and there wasn't a lot space for them to stop or for us to stand so we were starting to get slightly worried.
At one point a car with a black racing stripe on it came racing past us, stopped about 100m ahead of us and then came racing back to us in reverse. We were a little worried as to what kind of people we'd find inside the car, but it turned out to be 2 german girls and a german guy. Their car was absolutely packed already but we somehow managed to squeeze ourselves and our stuff in. We got to talking to them, they were quite nice, and found out that they were headed to Wellington, stopping in Wanganui for some food. We decided to ask if it was okay for us to ride all the way to Wellington with them, and they said that would be okay. As we got to thinking about it we realised that it would be very late by the time we arrived in Wellington and finding a hostel to stay in might become a problem. When we got to Wanganui they said they were worried the car might be overburdened and it was sitting very low on it's axles, so that they probably wouldn't be able to take us all the way to Wellington. jasper seemed a bit disappointed but I was sort of glad we wouldn't have to go through the hassle of finding a hostel in Wellington and I was too tired for the ride anyway.
We decided to have dinner with them and afterwards they dropped us off at our hostel.
Here I suddenly realised my phone and iPod were no longer in my pocket and they weren't anywhere in my bag either, so I figured they probably fell out of my pocket during one of our rides.
The next day we set out for Wellington and managed to get there after only 2 rides. It was a bit of a hassle to find a Hostel as a lot of them were booked full, so we decided to stay in the Base Backpackers, despite previous bad experiences, as it was the only one that had space available.
We could only book for 2 nights however, since that weekend there was to be an AC/DC concert and also a concert by Them Crooked Vultures (a band with Dave Grohl) so everything was booked full. We decided to give Josh a ring and see if we could maybe stay with him for 1 night, fortunately he said we could and that this way we'd be able to meet his parents as well.
After that was all settled we headed out into town and to the i-site to book a Lord of the Rings movie tour. Having booked that for the next day we decided to go back to our hostel and make dinner. We soon found out that the people in this Base were exactly the same as the ones in base Auckland. Loud, obnoxious, constantly drunk people who go to new Zealand for nothing else but to party. Anyways we made dinner and hung out in our room for a while before going to sleep.
The following day we headed to the i-site for our tour, while we were waiting we decided to book our boat for two days later. When we got picked up it turned out that we were the only 2 on the tour, the tour operator asked if we wanted to go the next day so that there were more people on the tour, but we'd already made plans so we declined. The first few locations were fairly boring, despite detailed information about where they shot what and a video to accompany the site so that we could recognise it ourselves. Eventually we went for lunch in the park where they shot rivendell, lunch consisted of Subway and a coke. After lunch he took us on a tour through the rivendell locations and the location where they took this: http://netanya.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/legolas_logo.jpg promotional picture.
Ofcourse we had to take our pictures at the same place, but before we could make our way up there he said he had something for us. He reached into his bag and pulled out a blonde wig, I couldn't stop laughing as he adorned my head with it. After it was on and secure I wanted to make my way up to the log, but he said he more! Out came a huge pair of rubber ears, and feeling absolutely ridiculous I posed for the picture. And well, you've probably already seen the picture on my previous post, it sort of speaks for itself.
After lunch we headed back to Wellington to pick up some more peopleand headed off to the place where they filmed the buckland forest scenes. He had some more props here for our pictures (i.e. a pipe, a pan, a broken carrot for the "I think I've broken something" scene etc.) and we had a lot of fun taking them. He even had 3 of the girls pose as a horse and black rider, hilarity ensued.
That night we didn't get a lot sleep, the guys sleeping in our room snored like there was no tomorow. We had never heard anything like it, and hopefully never will again.
We checked out after breakfast and after numerous failed attempts to contact Josh we were starting to get a bit worried. After about 3 hours we finally heard from him, turned out he had gone out drinking heavily the night before and wasn't entirely awake. He picked us up about an hour after with 3 of his friends. They had their breakfast in a kebab shop and then drove us back to Josh' place. It was so hot that day that Josh suggested we go to the river to cool off. He also mentioned they had a pretty good jump off a cliff there, about 15 meters high. We had already done a jump like that while canyoning, so we were pretty confident. When we actually got to the top of the cliff we realised this might be a bit higher, not to mention a lot more dangerous and got really nervous. But, we'd already climbed all the way up there and for some stupid reason I was the one directly behind Josh and he insisted that we go before him, which meant I had to jump first. I didn't want to go first, but there was no way I could get Josh to go first so I just kept my fingers crossed and ran off the edge. During the fall I had plenty of time to think of how high I was falling from before hitting the water with my hands flat (stupid move on my part), they were really sore afterwards so i decided one jump was enough for me.
That evening Josh and his family were going to a touchball match for Josh' dad's team. Turned out that they were short in players and me and jasper had to fill the gaps. Usually I'm at least decent at a sport, but the rules for this game were so strange that I probably didn't do very good at all, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.
They fed us a great meal and a huge scoop of ice-cream, Josh' mom even washed some of my clothes (though I did end up leaving one of my pants there). The following morning we caught the first train into Wellington and boarded our boat.

Drums in the deep. . .

We met up with Elsbeth and the rest of the cavers, Stewart and his sons Hamish, Josh and Ben, Jasper unfortunately didn't feel like going.
Our gear consisted of some polyprop underclothing, an overall and a bicycle helmet with a headlamp attached to it. Stewart and his sons of course had more professional gear, Stewart even had an old fashioned carbite headlamp which gave a surprising amount of light. The first day we were going to have an easy day (easier than the second day anyway) so that Stewart could see how me and Elsbeth would cope with the dark and cramped spaces. After a short drive and a short walk through the forest we arrived at the cave entrance, it didn't seem like much from afar but on closer inspection it was big enough to crouch through.
Our lights were more than bright enough to fight off the dark and the corridors were surprisingly large. We continued through the tunnel, sometimes crawling over rocks, sometimes squeezing through tight cracks. We passed beautiful rock formations, hordes of stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites protruding rising up from the cold hard ground. One particularly large formation was called “The birthday candle” and was a huge column in the middle of a large chamber. After a while, I’m not sure how long because it’s very hard to judge time in the dark, we sat down to have lunch. Josh and Elsbeth played a game of torch tag, a game seemingly without rules (they were made up on the go) where the point was to touch the other’s light beam with your own. After the exciting match (Elsbeth was clearly the winner) we headed back and descended down a caving ladder to the river. We followed this for a short while, as a sort of taste for what the beginning of the next day would be like. Despite getting wet up to my waist and having to manoeuvre through some tricky squeezes while trying to stay above the water this was fun. On the way we passed an impressive formation of stalactites that were covering a small passageway almost completely, like teeth in an enormous mouth. Soon however we returned and headed out by following the river upstream.
I wasn't particularly stressed by the dark or the confined spaces while in the caves but I was glad to see the sun again even though we had only been in the cave for about 3 hours. I was glad my cold didn't cause any problems either, though blowing my nose in a soaking wet, mud coated handkerchief wasn't exactly my favourite part of the day. Before we headed back to the car we stopped at a point on the walkway, here we attached a rope to a tree and threw it over the edge of the cliff; we were going to abseil down. After we all abseiled down into the river Stewart brought some special gear, which he told me would enable me to climb up the rope without too much difficulty. When I tried it however I found it to be far from that, Stewart told me the trick was to climb with my legs and not my arms but I couldn't stop leaning backwards and having to correct myself with my arms. My arms felt like a blubbery mess when I finally made it to the top, but at least I made it. As we were changing back to our normal clothes Hamish asked if he could drive us back to the campsite, Elsbeth agreed and he went to start the car. But it didn't start. The key broke inside the lock and it was the only key we had. After trying a few things to get the car started again (like taping the key back together) they somehow managed it and off we were. As we got to the campsite they dropped me, Stewart and Josh off while the rest drove to Hamilton to get a new key.
The next day was going to be a lot more intense than the second day, or so I was promised, so I decided to get as much rest as possible.
We entered at the same point we exited the day before and made our way through the cave, following the river as it cut its way through the rock. Eventually we stopped, it seemed we weren't going to follow the river anymore, but rather climb the steep wall to a tunnel about 10 meters above us. Stewart was going to free-climb up and then lower a rope for us as a security. An impressive feat, seeing as how our shoes were completely wet and covered in slippery mud, as he reached the top he lowered a rope for us. We tied it around our waist and were then to climb up the same way as Stewart, if we did fall we'd have a few seconds to find our footing again before the pressure of the rope destroyed our kidneys, not to mention that we'd be swung sideways into solid rock. Nevertheless we all managed to climb up safely, even Josh who was only 11 years old. We continued making our way through the caves, now passing through water, now wading our way through knee deep mud until we reached another climb. This time there would be no rope as we chimneyd our way up before flinging our body to one side and clambering up through a small hole. It looked terrifying and it was hard to find the right footing at first, but after the first few steps it was easy.
After a while of making our way through the cave, passing holes every now and then "You do not want to fall in there, it's very deep!" Josh (the youngest) suddenly slipped and fell in a hole, I couldn't see him anymore as I was a few feet behind him but I could hear him scream. I was afraid he'd fallen into one of the endless holes and broken every bone in his body, but luckily it was only a meter or so deep and he was more shocked than hurt. It wasn't until after he climbed out of the hole and we made our way over the rock blocking the path after that, that we found out it was actually easier to go through the hole Josh fell in.
We had our lunch just outside of a crawl poetically called "The horrible place", quite a long place you could only crawl through; in fact there was only just enough space to lift your head to look in front of you. Then of course there was the fact that more than half of it was filled with water and mud. Ben and Josh were arguing about who had to go in first, so I decided to be adventurous and go in first. The water was cold and the mud very slippery, it took me 5 to 10 minutes to crawl through but it seemed longer, and I was glad when the roof grew higher and higher and I no longer had to keep my chin up to prevent from mud coming in my mouth. After this Stewart told us to take off our boots and our overalls, apparently further up there were cave pearls which were extremely fragile and rare so we had to go in there on our socks and in our polyprop underclothing. It sort of felt like a weird slumber party in a cold damp cave. The cave pearls were shiny round balls that slowly travelled through a series of pools, growing bigger as they did. We had to walk on the edges of the pools in order not to accidentally step on them. When the river dramatically fell into a hole in the side we knew we reached the end of cave pearl country and turned back. This marked the end of the trip and we made our way back out. Stewart lowered us down the large cliff, he and his son Hamish chose to free-climb their way down. As we were almost out of the cave we suddenly ran into another caver, and then another one and before we knew it we were passing through a large crowd of people. After having walked through the dark for hours it was a shock to suddenly run into them, apparently there were also tourist companies going into that cave. Soon after we reached the end of the cave and made our way back to the car. As we got back to the campsite we said goodbye, seeing as they were going back to Whakatane straight away. Me and Jasper stayed another night and set off for Wellington the following day.

Diving pictures:
http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/Mikhail%20Lermontov/

rest of the pictures:
http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%20Februari%209/

Mt. Taranaki

I awoke in the dark, the wind was pummelling our tent to the point of it becoming airborne and the rain was drumming an intense rhythm on the sail. I checked my watch; 1 hour until we had to get up and make our way to the mountain. I prayed for a miraculous improvement, if this weather held up chances of us reaching the summit and living to tell about it would be slim. During breakfast the rain stopped, but the wind continued to howl ominously. We had to rush to get ready in time for our shuttle, and as we went to pick up the other hikers, the driver asked what our destination was for the day. When we replied that we wanted to reach the summit he gave us an unbelieving glance and mentioned that the wind would probably be worse at the summit than it was down here and. . . well, looking out the window we all saw what he was trying to say. We replied that we’d see how far we’d get, but seeing as the shuttle cost us $50 each I was determined to get as close to the safe limit as I could. We arrived at the information centre based at the foot of the mountain seconds before it opened and by then the rain had returned with a vengeance. We wrote our name in the logbook so that people would come search for us should we go missing and bought a map of the track. When the receptionist asked us if we were going to the summit, she warned us that the winds would be harsh on the summit and that we had to be very careful. Jasper suggested that maybe we should just do another track and come back another day to do the summit, but I had already made up my mind that I was going for the summit, however I could understand if Jasper didn’t want to come. We set out on the track in miserable weather, clouds were resting on the side of the mountain and the air was thick with water droplets, the wind was even more intense than before and rain was coming down in a constant stream. The track turned upward after 5 minutes and showed no signs of straightening out any time soon; instead it just got steeper and steeper. As we rounded a corner we were suddenly overlooking a valley and were fully exposed to the wind. The sheer force of it enough to make us stumble every other step, to stop my hat from adopting a career as a kite I decided to take it off and carry it in my hand. As the wind was threatening to blow us off the track I began to get serious doubts about reaching the summit, as I looked over towards Jasper I could see that he was thinking the same thing. However, I wasn't ready to give up just yet, so we pressed on. We were soon passed by one of the guys from the shuttle, he was racing up the mountain overtaking us easily. Soon after he disappeared out of sight we reached one of the many lodges that were scattered around the mountain. Welcoming the temporary respite from the biting wind we entered to have some lunch. Inside we found two guys and started talking to them. It seems they ran across the guy who overtook us and were just discussing whether or not the guy would be stupid enough to go to the summit or not. After they asked if we were going to the summit as well, we replied that we weren't sure because the wind was showing no signs of decreasing. Turns out that one of the guys was attempting to reach the summit every day for an entire year and he offered to take us up to the summit via a different route. Seeing as this was probably the only way we were going to be able to reach the summit we accepted. Just as we were about to leave a young woman stopped by the hut and after we talked to her for a while she asked if she could come with us; we were now with 5. We set off at a solid pace, climbing a large set of stairs that soon changed into a steep slope littered with large boulders. After a short while of walking over the track Danny (our unofficial guide) diverted us off the track along the side of the mountain. There was now no more track to walk over and we shuffled over loose rocks and ash trying our best to keep our footing. After we reached the other side of the mountain, now comfortably out of the wind's reach, we started to make our way upwards once more. We climbed over large boulders and back and forth over a small stream running down the side of the mountain. The slope was extremely steep and the boulders large and difficult to manoeuvre. Sometimes we had to jump from one boulder to another, after I jumped to one of these particular boulders it turned out to be more slippery than I anticipated and my feet slipped out from underneath me. Luckily I managed to grab hold of the edges before I fell off it completely; a little shaken I kept on following the others. By now their pace had become murderous and me and Jasper were slowly falling behind, we had no time to stop though every inch of our body was screaming for a little rest. Finally, after what seemed like ages, we finally stopped to rest up. Just around the corner from where we stopped was the edge of the snow and Danny wanted us to walk on it a bit so that we'd know what to do when we reached the snow filled crater. A few minutes after we set out again we ran across the man from the shuttle who passed us earlier that morning. Danny talked to him for a while, seemingly finding it hard to believe he had reached the summit before us, but the guy insisted he reached the summit and told us we could find his footprints there if we didn't believe him. All the way to the top Danny kept saying how he was sure the guy didn't reach the summit at all, he seemed very agitated for some reason. We didn't have any time to heed his agitation though as we had reached our same old murderous tempo again. The slope was getting steeper and steeper, luckily the mountain was covered in clouds so we couldn't see how far down it was. We eventually reached a ridge about a foot or two wide. As we rounded a corner we bared the full grunt of the wind once again. Danny had warned us against this, saying we had to get as close to the ground as possible to prevent the wind from blowing us off our feet and right off the mountain. Seeing as there was nothing at the side of the ridge, and the clouds meant we couldn't even see how deep the drop was but we knew it was deep enough to hurt, we were keen to follow his advice and hugged the wall and the ground. Soon we reached the snow filled crater and traversed it without much difficulty. Just a few more meters up and we finally reached the summit. The wind was worse than before but luckily the spot just below the summit was virtually wind free and we ate our lunch there. As we went back into the crater we saw some footprints leading the other way, and Danny concluded that the guy we passed earlier must have gone the wrong way and missed the summit. He couldn't keep from talking about and laughing at the guy all the way down, he seemed to really have an issue with this man for some reason. Jasper and I merely shrugged at this and continued our way down. The way down seemed to take ages and ages but finally, 7 and a half hours after we started, we reached the information centre. And who but the same man Danny couldn't stop obsessing about did we find there resting in the sun. Danny couldn't keep himself from rubbing it in the guys face. When the shuttle came to pick us up again the man asked us if he really missed the summit, seeming a bit distressed, I replied that I wasn't sure but that it might have been possible, though he probably did miss it. When we reached our hostel we were greeted by Yvonne (the receptionist) and were told that we could finally have two Dutch flags on the Egmont cake that night. The following day we noticed a sign saying they needed help in exchange for free accommodation, and since we didn't have anything planned for the following week we figured we may as well make ourselves useful while we wait for our trip to Waitomo Caves. Yvonne was a bit shocked when we asked her but said she would be glad to have us and promised that she had plenty of work for us, mostly in the garden. First, however we planned to take two days off to recover from our climb.
Two days later we started our work with a small tour through the garden and drive-way where Ray, who was also camping there and had previously worked as a gardener, gave us a quick rundown of the work that had to be done and the plants that had to be cut. We headed back to the shed and picked up the tools, as we were about to cut the first of the branches the owner's sister showed up and decided to give us another tour of the grounds and show us what to do. Her orders were completely different from Ray and Yvonne's orders, so me and Jasper began our work slightly annoyed. But, we soldiered on and 3 hours later we were done and the garden looked considerably better for it.
The following morning I awoke with a sore throat and slightly congested sinuses. After cutting down several bushes and sweeping the entire drive-way (which to me seemed absolutely pointless) the cold had reached maturity. I was feeling pretty bad by that evening and when we went into town to eat some subway (we were invited to a counter-strike tournament for that evening) I nearly fainted while ordering my sub, it was somewhere around that point that I decided I wasn't going to work the next day. Jasper slept in the dorm that night as a precaution against him getting sick as well, the following morning I told Yvonne I couldn't work and paid for the night. The next day I didn't work either and was still feeling pretty sick, I was getting worried that I wasn't going to be able to go caving. After having prepared for this trip for a month and a half I would have been really annoyed if I missed it, so cold or not I knew I was going in those caves.
The following morning we packed our stuff, said goodbye to Yvonne and Ray gave us a lift to just outside New Plymouth. We didn't have a sign because unfortunately all the cardboard had been collected earlier that day and the garbage bag we tried to convert into a sign didn't exactly work either. Despite being a bit pessimistic about our chances we managed to get to Waitomo without any difficulties at all.

Off to New Plymouth

Standing by the side of the road just outside of Taupo with a sign that wasn't exactly one of our prettier ones, Jasper suggested we make another sign that said Wellington. I personally didn't think much of the plan as the chances of catching a ride all the way to Wellington from Taupo are pretty slim, but we'd need the sign sooner or later anyway so we made the sign. Standing there with a sign each we started making bets as to what kind of car would pick us up, I went for a white one but Jasper swore it would a red one, saying: "All the young, cool people have red cars". I wanted to prove him wrong by showing that white cars had young people in it as well, but every white car that came passed seemed to further solidify his theory. After about 15 minutes a car stopped (I forgot what colour but let's just say it was white), already filled halfway with stuff and a young guy and girl in the front. When we went up to them they said: "Hop in! We're going all the way to Wellington!". I couldn't help but laugh, we may be destined for disaster but by god, we are lucky on the way! While on the road Josh (the driver) said he lived in a town just outside of Wellington (or was it a suburb?) and that we could stay there for the night if we wanted, he was going to take his girlfriend to Wellington the next day anyway. So, 5 hours later, we arrived at his house where he finally caught hold of his parents to tell them there'd be visitors staying the night. His father's reaction: "No! You can't have hitch-hikers staying the night! Are you crazy!?" Our reaction to that: "Errr. . .". Turns out his father thought he picked up a bunch of bums from the side of the road (Which we totally aren't, right? Right!?), and when Josh said we were backpackers on our OE (that's Overseas Experience) his father was totally ok with it. Phew! So we chilled out and had a few beers with Josh, his girlfriend and Josh's younger brother and his girlfriend (and her kid, but he was a bit too young to drink). When Josh's brother heard we were from Holland his first reaction was: "So, do you smoke pot?" "No." "Are you sure?". Yes, we were sure unfortunately for him, but it seems the Dutch (or maybe it's just backpackers in general) are notorious potheads because that was far from the first time someone asked us that; I wonder why. . .
The next day Josh took us into Wellington and gave us a quick tour of the city, led us through the local museum Te Papa, which is really neat, and took us up to the lookout point where you could look out over all of Wellington. He also took us to a camera store to find Jasper's camera (the whole reason we came to Wellington), they had a lot of cameras, including a newer version of Jasper's model, but unfortunately not Jasper's. They could however order it for us and if we were lucky it would there on Saturday (the next day) if not, on Monday. After a quick tour through the local museum called 'Te Papa' he dropped us off at a hostel and said goodbye. The hostel wasn't exactly cheap and the kitchen was much too small for the amount of people trying to eat and cook there, but hopefully we'd only have to stay there for 1 night.
The next day we set out just before 10 AM, seeing as that's when they kicked us out of the hostel. We arrived at the camera store about half an hour before it opened so we waited, impatiently, for it to open.
When it finally did I went to ask if it was alright if we stored our bags there while we waited to see if Jasper's camera would arrive that day, but before I even finished my sentence a courier arrived with Jasper's camera and we were all set to go! We asked that camera guy what the best way to get out of Wellington would be and he mentioned that it was actually not possible to hitch-hike out of Wellington because you couldn't stop on the motorway. We hadn't thought about that yet. So he advised us to take a bus out of town and try it from there. Unfortunately it was Sunday and we found that the bus we needed didn't actually go that day. Bummer. So we headed to the i-site and asked if it was possible to take a train out of Wellington and fortunately for us it was. After a 15 minute walk we arrived at the train station and went to purchase our tickets. When the ticket guy asked me if someone was going to pick us from there I replied: "Hopefully!", "Oh" he says "Because the no-stop zone is actually still in effect there, if you want to hitch-hike you have to go a bit further." The man probably saved us a lot of trouble and soon we arrived in the lovely little town of Plimmerton. About 5-10 minutes of sticking our thumbs up later 2 girls approach us and ask if we want a ride to about half-way; of course we do! And so we pick up our bags, but just as soon as we'd gathered everything a van stopped and asked us with how many we were, Turns out they could take us all the way to our destination (Wanganui) so we had to turn the girls down. After stopping for lunch on the way, we arrived in Wanganui early in the afternoon and went to check-in in a hostel that was, according to my lonely planet, one of the best hostels in New Zealand. It was a tad pricey but well-worth it, so they said. As we inquired about a dorm bed the receptionist starting looking really worried. Their dorm was full (it only had a capacity of 3 beds) but they still had a single room open and if we didn't mind they could rent that out to us for the cost of 2 dorm beds and cram another bed in there for us. The place looked so good with their big wide-screen TV, huge stack of DVDs, free internet and hot tub that we decided to stay another night to rest up. After two good days of rest we moved on, hoping to get to Hawera, one of the guys we met at the hostel was kind enough to give us a head start and dropped us off just outside of town. As he was driving us there however, just before he wanted to kick us out, we passed two other hitch-hikers. Saying that it would probably be best for us to stand before rather than behind the competition he turned the car around and dropped us off just around the corner from where those two guys were. 2 minutes later we get picked up and cruise by our competition, Jasper couldn't resist hanging out of the window and waving at them. We read in my lonely planet that there was a farm stay about 5 km out of town so we planned to stay there, but it took us about 20 minutes from the centre of town to get there (by car) so we decided it wasn't such a good place to stay after all. Luckily our driver mentioned he was going to Stratford (sister town of Stratford upon Haven) and that that there were plenty of hostels there. So, off we went to Stratford with not a clue what we could do there. We booked for two nights and spent those two days doing nothing at all. Well, Jasper bought one of those old RPG books (if you want to go east, turn to page. . . etc.) and some dice so we had some fun with that, but there was really nothing else to do.
After all that fun we made our way out of town to find a good hitch-hiking spot and as we were walking to our selected spot, a car stops and asks if we're going to New Plymouth, and we were! Apparently she read the "New" part of our sign as we were walking and figured we must be going to New Plymouth so she stopped and picked us up. We asked her to drop us off at a place called Egmont Eco Lodge which was a hostel but also had camping. As we approached the lady sitting behind the reception she immediately told us that she "wasn't there" because the reception was only opened from 10am till 12pm and from 5pm till 8pm, she then told us to just pitch our tent and come back at 5. We were taken a bit aback by her promptness but set out to pitch our tent anyway. When we came back at 5 we found the receptionist to be a lot more friendly, apparently she had been trying to work out the accounts earlier and was getting annoyed from constantly being interrupted and having to start all over again; fair enough. We booked for a few nights and set out make dinner; pancakes. Since we made more pancakes than ever before we ended up with a huge surplus of pancakes and decided to just give them away to people, including the receptionist. She would tell this story to numerous other customers after that "I basically told them to piss off in the afternoon and that evening they were feeding me pancakes!".
We met some nice people during those days, including an old English couple that had been travelling around New Zealand for a while. That guy was a real character, complaining about everyone and everything but still keeping a jolly attitude. When we offered them so pancakes he insisted that we try some with sugar and lemon as that's the way they eat them in England, of course the New Zealand lemons are but weak imitations of the British ones but he reckoned we should still give it a taste. So we did, and it didn't taste too bad at all.
One of the main reasons we went to the Taranaki region was Mt. Egmont (or Mt. Taranaki as it's also known), there was a day hike going all the way to the summit and I was anxious to try it, Jasper was a lot less anxious and it took me a while to convince him to come along; I guess the fact that 60 people had already died on that mountain didn't really help either. The first few days the weather was fine, though it was a bit windy on the mountain and it was usually covered in clouds. Seeing as we were spending a lot of time in the internet cafe anyway, playing video games, we checked the weather every now and then and picked a good day to go.
As sort of a warm-up we went up a small, but very steep, hill which was about an hours walk out of town. On the way there we passed a group of cyclers, after they passed us later on we overtook them again as they were resting in a park. They overtook us again and they were just about to climb the hill as we arrived there. This went on for the entire walk back as well and finally one of the women says "You boys should get yourselves a pair of bikes, it's nearly faster than walking.".