Sweet As.

OK, I have finally found time and a place that doesn't charge me an arm and a leg to update. So here it goes....
I made it just fine to Raglan for the surfing. I stayed in what can be considered the coolest hostel ever. Free transport to the beach, plenty of hammocks and nightly BBQs. I treid my hand at surfing and didn't do half bad. I even managed to get up a few times. Hey, go me. I do believe I could have easily spent the rest of my time in NZ there, but alas there was so much more to see, so sadly I had to pull myself away from my sleepy little surf town.
I picked up my bus from Hamilton and made my way down to Rotorua next. It's strange really: in every other hostel/backpackers I have ever been in, the average age is maybe 30 with the occasional 40+ thrown in. IN NZ you literally get golden agers on the circuit and families staying in hostels! I know it is a bit ageist, but I'm not a fan. You feel like somehow they know your mom and are going to tattle on you. And they go to bed really early and aren't afraid to ask you to shut up at 9:50 on a Friday night. Not a fan. But that is beside the point.
Rotorua is a interesting little town. Good nightlife and a beautiful lake only diminished by the constant stink of geothermal activity and sulfur pools. The entire area sits right on top of huge underground hot springs and smells like rotten eggs. You get used to it pretty quick then go about your way. I allowed myself a bit of cheese while I was there and went to a Maori concert and dinner. If you just leave you sense of embarrassment at the door, it's a great time. You get to sing and eat and talk to maori "villagers" about their old ways then at the end of the evening you get to lad back on the bus and sing a song from your country and if you are the only American on the bus like I was, you get to do it all by yourself. It's cool though; you will never see these people again.
I had a couple of really cool kids from Toronto move into my room and coincidentally end up on the same bus as me plus two other Irish girls so we've been a snug little family from Rotorua on.
After Rotorua, it was on to Taupo and all the adrenaline I will ever need. As the driver put it, I was the adrenaline junkie on the bus. At 2pm, I threw myself off of a 42 meter bridge with only a bungy cord attached to my ankles (ok, not really. The guy had to push me else it was going to take longer to get me off that platform) then at 4pm I attached myself to some crazy fool who chucks himself out of planes for a living and put my life in his hands at 15,000 ft. SO FRICKIN COOL!! I can't wait to skydive again!!!! Much easier than bungy too as you don't really get a say when you go. They scoot you to the edge of the plane, whip open this door, hang out out feet first of this little tiny plane, have you smile for the camera and just when you are beginning to think, "oh holy crap, this is a bad idea" they let go and you freefall for a whole minute with a nice little parachute ride down. Awesome Awesome Awesome. After all of that excitement, I went to bed pretty early that night.
The next morning at 5:30 we loaded into a bus to go hike the Tongariro Crossing. "Oh, it's just a bit of uphill in the beginning", a friend said. Liar. Know in Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Sam get into Mordor and it's blisteringly hot and they make their way to Mount Doom? Yeah, they filmed that in Tongariro. A bit of uphill in the beginning was actually half the walk and gaining about 800 meters in altitude. However, you cross a long extinct volcano and several geothermal lakes and it is one of the most beautiful walks I have ever seen. It took the better part of 7 hours and almost 11 miles. We made it back to the van just as it started raining which was a nice capper to a great day. The next day, we were all walking around like old ladies as the last month of doing nothing has made us all soft and an 11 mile hike reminded our legs and backs of that one. My arms were even sore. Really? My arms? I figured it was from swinging them back and forth back and forth plodding down the mountain.
Then a bus on to Wellington, a night there and a ferry down to the South Island. This has the highest amount of days a year of sunshine, something like 320 days and the weather is great for a bit of recuperation. I wanted to spend a little more time with my "family" so decided to make Nelson my last stop south before heading back to Wellington for a couple days then to Auckland and back to Thailand. I have decided to extend my trip to the 27th and try to go into Laos or Vietnam (in the end, whichever is cheaper and easier to get in to).
I'll probably post one more time before leaving NZ, but if not when I get back to Bangkok.