No Berkeley

As I suspected, I am not accepted to UC Berkelely. It was kind of a long shot anyways and at least I didn't have to pay an application fee because I qualified for a fee waiver (although Berkeley was the only place where I was eligible).

I'm still waiting to hear from UConn, UMass, UT Austin, and U of Michigan, so don't get too excited about me going to Chicago yet.

We've been traveling the remote East Coast (past the Whale Rider setting) and are in Gisborne. Hopefully in a few days we'll be able to post more for less than $8 an hour.

Carrie

The Optimist's Week

On Friday, 16 February, we woke up in a park in the town of Leigh where we thankfully escaped being asked to leave by a policeman by pretending to be asleep at 9:30 pm. It was another beautiful day in New Zealand.

Goat Island, near Leigh, is the best place for snorkeling in New Zealand. We rented snorkel gear from a place called Seafriends (www.seafriends.co.nz) that also has a great marine education center. We rented full wetsuits (even hoods!) in addition to our masks, snorkels, and fins. Thanks to our wetsuits we were able to stay in the water for over 2 hours and snorkeled all the way around the island without getting sunburned or cold. We saw heaps of fish, three eagle rays, and five ctenophores (comb jellies). Not bad for Matt’s first time snorkeling.

Friday night we camped at a DOC campground. On Saturday morning we headed to Whangarei (fahn-ga-ray) after a morning of sightseeing, we had occasion to meet a nice mechanic on our way out of town. He told us we didn’t ever have to spend any more money on Lu! And he directed us to a nice auto wrecker. Then we met some friendly people at a little shopping mall who gave us directions to an internet café that is open on Saturday afternoon.


The end of Lu's long road

We were able to slowly drive Lu to a park near the edge of town for Saturday night, and avoided bother by both boy racers and police. On Sunday morning we met Grant out walking his dog Bella. Grant kindly pointed us in the direction of the nearest tap to fill our waterbottles and offered to bring us some refreshment later in the afternoon. When he returned, he did better than bring refreshment- he offered to let us stay at his house Sunday night. He lived about 200 meters from the parking lot so Lu made it to the house without blowing a hole in the engine. We spent the rest of Sunday with Grant, Sonja, and their four lovely children. We could hardly thank them enough! They always have an invitation to crash with us wherever we live in the U.S.

On Monday morning we went back to the Whangarei wrecker who we met on Saturday. He showed us a 1992 Nissan station wagon that seemed perfectly suited to our needs. Sort of a newer version of Lu. It had Warrant of Fitness (WOF) until June and current registration. It fit the bill! We got $200 towards the new car from trading in Lu and paid $1200 cash. We transferred all of our things from Lu to the new car and were on the road by about 10 am. R.I.P. Lu. For her age (1984 with 394,000 km), I’d say Lu gave us remarkably little trouble. And then when she did, she went all out and kicked the bucket. I think that’s better than gradually breaking replaceable parts only to kick it after hundreds of dollars of repairs.

We spent Monday night at another DOC campsite (a free one!) where we met five other American Ultimate Frisbee players our age who were traveling in New Zealand. We hung out with them for a bit and they taught us how to make a great bean dip on a camp stove which we had just acquired (we were just eating cold sandwiches for all of our meals until then). We fixed up Lu’s curtains in the new car (which I must say do match much better) and named her Sandy. Our first night in Sandy was excellent! She’s wider than Lu in the back so we were so laterally squished.

On Tuesday morning the nice Americans gave me a ride to the nearest town to get jumper cables. The friendly mechanics at the only garage in town kindly loaned theirs and we got a jump from the Americans.

On Tuesday we were able to buy groceries and put gas in the car. We stopped at an awesome kauri woodshop where they make things out of 40-50,000 year old kauri logs that have been dug out of prehistoric swamps. We bought a piece of wood to make into a cutting board. We were still headed north and met up with the Americans again at some giant sand dunes. We watched them slide down on boards and then they let us take a ride on their boards. I’ve never been sledding down a dune like that! It was awesome!



We drove the rest of the way out to Cape Reinga, the northwestern point of the North Island and camped at a nearby DOC campsite. We didn’t have exact change to pay on the honor system, so we waited for someone to come by to collect the fees
later and they never did so we stayed for free.


Cape Reinga

We got a nice early start on Wednesday and drove down from the Cape and almost all the way back to Whangarei. We contacted some Whangarei couch surfer hosts (Karen & Colin) who had offered to put us up on Monday and they said we could come on Wednesday instead. I think the only time we’ve been as thrilled to have a bed and a shower was two days before when we were rescued from the park by Grant & Sonja. Karen and Colin have done an amazing amount of traveling all over the world. They have a lovely house in the countryside with two cool dogs and beautiful views. It was so relaxing and refreshing that we decided to take them up on their offer for us to stay Thursday night as well.


Karen & Colin and their two dogs


Tane Mahuta Kauri tree

On Thursday we had a relaxing morning and then went to see the tane mahuta kauri tree that is ‘God of the forest.’ It’s the biggest tree in New Zealand. Almost all of the old kauri trees were logged about 100 years ago, but a few like the tane mahuta remain. It is a massive tree! On the way back to Colin & Karen’s house we learned that our car can go 710 km on a tank of gas. Then we met some exceptionally kind and sympathetic people. One woman drove me down the road to a farm where another woman got me a can with some diesel.

The best thing about Thursday was that I got accepted to graduate school! Hooray!

Today (Friday) we’re headed back to Auckland to stay with Paul, another couch surfer host who we stayed with before we went to Waiheke Island. Then on Saturday we’ll go to Tokoroa to see Kerry’s neighbor compete in a super sports competition.

Carrie

It Wouldn't Be An Adventure If Everything Went Right...

The Pessimist’s Week

I think things started going wrong when a bug flew in my ear and got stuck. We were standing at Seafriends discussing prescription masks with the shop owner when I heard something in my ear. It sounded like the noise was IN my ear, sort of like when a drop of water is rolling out (I hadn’t been snorkeling yet so I ruled that out). It stopped for a bit, then would start up again. It sounded like something was tapping or flapping near my eardrum. We were waiting around for 100 school kids to get snorkel gear anyways, so I went and got a Q-tip from the car. Sure enough, a little tiny green bug about 1.5 mm long had flown into my ear and gotten stuck in the earwax. Has anyone else ever had this happen?

So really, nothing bad happened while we were snorkeling, except that the dolphins and whales once again failed to appear on cue.

Saturday morning we had a whole list of interesting places to visit in and around Whangarei. First we tried to go to a native bird recovery center, but it was closed (apparently the guy only comes in for like an hour each day to feed them). Then we went to a slightly disappointing fernery that I thought would be more informative. Next we tried to go to the art museum but it was closed for the weekend to set up a new exhibition. Then we went to an elevated canopy walkway that also failed to deliver to my nerdy educational expectations.

We were just on our way out of Whangarei when * ping * - Lu started making a rattling noise when we accelerated. I convinced Matt that we were better off stopping at a mechanic before leaving Whangarei than having to stop further down the road in the sparsely populated north. And, it was 2 pm on a Saturday which meant that if a store wasn’t closed already it was about to. There was a mechanic conveniently located only about 3 blocks from where the noise started so we pulled right in. After waiting for about half an hour, the mechanic came over to look at Lu. He revved the engine from under the hood (which I didn’t know you could do), listened to the rattle, and delivered the bad news.

“Sounds like you blew a piston. She’s terminal. She won’t go much longer before blowing a hole in the engine.”

Never the words you want to hear about your domicile on wheels. The mechanic gave us directions to the town wrecker who he’d just sold a “rough as guts” station wagon to. We carefully rolled Lu to the wrecker where we looked at the wagon, but he wasn’t kidding when he said rough as guts. You had to start the thing with a screwdriver. It didn’t have a WOF (Warrant of Fitness) so we ruled it out because we’d have to put hundreds into it just to get it to pass WOF. The wrecker said he was getting another station wagon in on Monday if we could hang around until then to take a look at it.

So, at 4 pm on Saturday we knew we were stuck in Whangarei until at least Monday. We carefully drove Lu from the wrecker into town where we walked around looking for a paper to look for used cars (nothing) and then found an internet café where we checked Trade Me (NZ’s homegrown version of ebay). We obviously couldn’t leave Whangarei but with the expense of a ‘new’ car imminent we didn’t think we could afford the $40-50 it would cost us to stay at a hostel for the night. We tried contacting the people we know to see if they had any close friends or relatives that might be able to help us out, but only got one lead that we didn’t follow up on. We looked up HelpExchange places and contact the ones that we thought Lu could get to and from before really dying, but no one needed or wanted help. We also contacted the three Whangarei couch surfers but didn’t get a response. We flipped a coin and thus decided to go back to the canopy walkway park and stay there until Monday. On the way there Lu started burning oil because of her busted piston.

We spent the rest of Saturday bored and exhausted at the thought of not being able to do much but read and eat peanut butter and jelly until Monday morning. Furthermore, our car was in plain view of the road so we couldn’t even really disguise the fact that we were spending the night there. Oh, and when we decided to park there we thought there were toilets with running water so we could fill up our water bottles, but we were wrong. No water on Saturday night.

There are some Quakers in Whangarei and we did have to spend all day Sunday biding our time, but for some unknown reason they meet on Fridays instead of Sunday mornings. So, we couldn't even use my Quakerness to find help and hospitality in Whangaeri. So, on Sunday morning we set out through the park towards a waterfall that I thought was a popular destination with public toilets and running water. Well, we went to the wrong waterfall and headed off the wrong way before being redirected. It took us about an hour and a half to fill up our water bottles. But then a whole bunch of good things happen and we can hardly be pessimistic about the generous hospitality we received on Sunday night.

The station wagon at the wrecker had a few strikes against it (automatic transmission, diesel, no radio/stereo) but it seemed ok and we couldn’t really be picky so we made a deal. We tried to pay with our debit card but it didn’t work so we had to get cash from an ATM and encountered more problems. We’d transferred extra money into our account in anticipation of this expense but it hadn’t gotten there yet (was Monday president’s day or something?). On top of that, there were withdraw limits on the ATM and bank account. So, I had to do a cash advance on my credit card (which I’ve never done before) so that we could buy our car.


Lu (left) and Sandy (right)

We bought the car and finally left Whangarei after search their bookstores in vain for the elusive Wrecked on a Reef. Monday night we stayed at a free DOC campground and met five American Ultimate Frisbee players who delightfully told us they'd spent the weekend playing in a hat tournament in... Whangarei. So the whole time that we were twiddling our thumbs we could've been playing Ultimate (although we wouldn't have met Sonja and Grant that way).

On Monday night we used our brand new little camp stove. However, we'd forgotten to buy matches so we had to borrow some from the Americans. Worse yet, we hadn't found a cheap enough pot so we tried to make quesedillas on my glass pie dish. And it shattered. Only half of the quesedilla was edible- the other half had imbedded glass shards. That was a bad idea. I don't recommend it (we have a pot now).

When we tried to leave the campground on Tuesday morning, Sandy (our new car) didn't start. We ran down the battery overnight with the interior light and the charger that runs off the cigarette lighter. At first I thought No problem, we did this with Lu. We just give her a push... and pop the non-existent clutch because Sandy is automatic. No cables in our car, no cables in the American's car, none in the other people's car. No people in the truck. We were definitely not walking distance to a town, so one of the American ultimate guys took me to the nearest town down the road while Matt stayed at the car. Once we got the cables and got a jump we were on our way north.

We stopped in Kaitaia (the Far North) for supplies (like jumper cables) before heading up to Cape Reinga. We had about $20 cash, almost no gas, very little food, and Matt's bank account said $0. So we overdrew the account knowing that more money would be coming in as soon as President's day was over or something. Thankfully that worked and were able to get gas and food and still have enough money to pay the camp site fees that night.

Our cetacean vibes deceived us once again at Cape Reinga and we didn't see any whales. Then we went to the nearby DOC campsite. It said they had showers, so after choosing our spot we went to investigate. Yes, there were showers. Cool, let's go for a swim in the ocean and then take showers and clean ourselves up. After our nice dip in the ocean, the showers failed to work. We couldn't even get a drip. Worse still, none of the water faucets worked and our water bottles were empty. And we were thirsty. Our best guess was that the water wasn't working because it was low tide, but there were no signs to warn us of this potentiality. The mosquitos started coming out after dinner and we retreated to the car, still dirty and defeated by the showers and lack of drinking water.

As it got darker outside, the mosquitos got worse and worse. They seemed to be flying through the glass. We thought the mosquitos near Tongariro were bad, but they were NOTHING compared to this. We were completely inside our sleeping bags except for our faces. If we had snorkels we would've used them but I'm sure we would've been sucking them in. It might be hard for you Northern Hemispherians to imagine, but it is still summer here and our sleeping bags are rated to below freezing. When the sweat started dripping down our bodies onto our already soaked sleeping bags at 11 pm we decided to make a break for it. We moved everything out of the driver's seat without getting out of the car and headed down the road to next campsite in hopes that they had a breeze and fewer mosquitos. We got about 5 minutes down the road when I realized my sandals had been sitting outside the car, so we had to turn around. Good thing we did because Matt's shoes had been left behind too.

As we drove down the road we tried to blow the mosquitos out by opening the windows and the back. We learned that mosquitos are very good at holding onto whatever they're on during a strong breeze. I smashed as many as I could. After about a 45 minutes down dirt roads we pulled into the other campsite, climbed into our sleeping bags, and slept fitfully as the few remaining mosquitos gorged themselves on our blood.

We woke up at 7 am the next morning and it was low tide again so the showers didn't work at that campsite either. Tired and dirty, we got the hell out of there. Later on Wednesday we stopped at an internet cafe in Kerikeri. It was an interesting combination of jewelry store and internet cafe. We felt way to dirty to even walk into the place, but they thankfully didn't turn up their nose at us. We arranged to stay with some nice couch surfer hosts near Whangarei who we'd contacted on Saturday when Lu died. Just after we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, steam appeared from under Sandy's hood. She had a little hole in a pipe and was spraying steam and water. Thankfully this was a minor problem that was easily repaired.

Staying with Colin and Karen was great- there's absolutely nothing pessimistic to say about it. The offered for us to stay Thursday night as well, and we took them up on the offer. So Thursday we made a day trip to the west to see the giant kauri trees that are 2000 years old. The trees were awesome, but we unfortunately grossly overestimated the density of gas stations in Northland. We ran out of gas on a paved road exactly half way between the nearest gas stations, each about a 35 minute drive away. We were still an hour or so from Karen & Colin's. Right across the road from where we stopped were a bunch of guys hanging out in the yard who seemed decidedly unhelpful and unsympathetic. To make matters worse, our car is DIESEL so we couldn't ask just anyone for some fuel.

A nice woman stopped to help when we flagged her down on the road. She drove me down the road to see if any of the farms had diesel. We found one not too far away but waited around for quite a while for the woman's husband to come home, which he didn't, so the three of us (the farmer, the good Samaritan, and me) figured out how to pump the diesel into a can and found a funnel. While we were waiting, the good Samaritan got eaten up by mosquitos because she was wearing a skirt and heels.

Meanwhile, back at the car, Matt flagged down a truck. The guy was nice enough to stop, but it ended there. Matt was over a barrel, the guy knew it, and decided to be a dick about it. Matt siphoned some diesel with his mouth (using a tube he paid the not so helpful guys across the street $10 to borrow), and paid the guy with the truck $20. At this point, Matt should've started the car to make sure it worked, except that he'd given me the (only) key in case he got a ride to a town while I was off looking for farm fuel. So all he could do was sit there and wait for me to return. He sat and read his book while the truck driver laughed at him across the road with the $10-richer unhelpful dudes. Matt started to worry that he'd actually been given petrol instead of diesel.

When I got back with the diesel in a can, we poured about a quarter of the can into the car and about a quarter on the ground. I got it all over my hands. We didn't bother putting the whole can in because at this point we had enough to get us back to Whangarei. Matt tried to start the car and it didn't go until about the 8th try which gave us a real worry, as the sun had set by this time. We thanked the good Samaritan profusely, returned the diesel can half full, and gave the farmer lady $20 for the fuel and her trouble.

We doled out $50 all in all, which would've filled our gas tank had we actually found a station before running out of fuel.

So let's recap:
Saturday: Lu dies.
Monday: Bought Sandy
Tuesday: Dead battery
Wednesday: Broken hose
Thursday: Ran out of gas

We're hoping for an uneventful Friday. We've now got jumper cables, know that our car can go 710 km on a tank, and we'll make a second key in Auckland.

Perhaps the worst part about our week is that some of these things are definitely our fault and we feel like big idiots for running out of gas, although luck didn't seem to be with us either.

Carrie

I WILL go to grad school!

I JUST received an email from the Ecology & Evolution Department at the University of Illinois- Chicago saying that I have been accepted to their program with financial support! WOO HOO! Sorry Seth, I don't think we'll be living in North Carolina next year.

So far this is my only good news about grad school. It looks like I won't be admitted to UMass unless hell freezes over and I don't know about U of M, UC Berkeley, UConn, or UT Austin.

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. We haven't had a reliable high speed connection for about 2 weeks. A LOT has happened in the past week (other than me being accepted to UIC) so we'll try to catch up on everything soon. Stay tuned!

Carrie

We're off to Waiheke Island

Tomorrow (Monday) morning we're taking a ferry from Auckland to Waiheke Island [36°47'0.21"S, 175° 2'40.54"E]. We're staying at a Quaker-owned mini-retreat center there until Thursday. I think we'll be out of email touch until then.

Carrie

A Bat Named Carrie!

For those of you interested in the pine forest bat research saga... It sounds like Kerry has had more than twice as much success catching bats in the past month than she had during the two months we were helping her in Tokoroa! She has been keeping us updated on their successes. Yesterday Kerry emailed us:

"Thought that you night like to know that we captured a young female bat (called Beth) the night after you visited. She smelt of milk still so we assumed that she was still being fed by Mum. we tracked her to a maternity roost - wahoo! Two days later we captured an adult female at that roost using hand nets (i.e. a couple of trout landing nets stuck on some PVC pipe and held up in the air). She too smelt of milk. We named her Carrie. The roost that they are in has 10-12 bats in it each night, so roost emergence counts are pretty exciting!"

Carrie

Anyone... anyone...

We were thinking about it and realized that there is no easy way for you guys to ask us questions or whatever on our blog. It is possible to post responses to specific posts but if you were wondering, for instance, what Kiwis call flip-flops or what the translation of "Aotearoa" is there would be no place for you to ask that question.
So, consider this an open forum for any and all questions you may have. We are not experts on New Zealand but we can at least try to answer them. Fire away.

Matt

My Artwork

I drew a picture of a bat for Kerry. We gave it to her when we visited last week after hiking the Tongariro Crossing. I drew it from a photo of Carter in Kerry’s hands and am quite pleased with how it turned out. I think I’m getting better with the pen.



Carrie

Part 4 of 3 - Waitomo Caves

So, we went and had another adventure in the series. Think of it like the extra "deleted" scenes from the DVD version of our lives (to be released by Christmas 2007).
Yesterday we woke up in Raglan and said our farewells to our more than generous hosts. The Frew family had been nice enough to let us into their home for a few days but it was time to move on. We drove about an hour and a half South from Raglan (which is not clockwise for those of you keeping track at home) to the Waitomo Caves. Before we came to New Zealand this was one of the few things that we knew we were going to do. A friend of Carrie's had suggested them to us and told us that we needed to splurge and do the show shebang. Carrie's parents knew about this and were generous enough to give us the funding for this trip from Christmas (thank you very much Dave and Angie).
This trip was spectacular. It begins with a 27 meter absail (repelling) off of a cliff into the cave.

As you can see from the picture they gave us tons of goofy gear to put on for this trip. I'd never worn a wet suit but I'm pretty sure they are not flattering on anyone.
The absailing was fun. It certainly was something to be descending into this crevasse in the Earth.
At the bottom of the cliff was a river that came out of the rock on one side and went in on the other. We did a bit of hiking up stream and then floated back down in inner-tubes.

Then we floated past the entrance point and another 20 minutes down stream. We stopped for tea at the far end of the cave and then hiked back upstream.

When we arrived we turned our inner-tubes in for another rope and we had to rock climb back up the cliff to the daylight. All told we were in the cave for about three hours.
I know that all sounds fun and exciting but I've had to not mention one thing until the end because I wanted it to be the dramatic finale. The whole time we were in the cave the ceiling was absolutely covered in glow worms! It looked like the night sky from the middle of the desert during a lunar eclipse through night vision goggles. It was absolutely incredible! Ok... here's the picture.

This is a time exposure shot where we all had to stand really still. The guide shone a flash light on us for a bit so we would come out a bit brighter but otherwise this shot hasn't been altered. The glow worms were so bright that with out lights off we could still see each other's faces. It was amazing.

Matt

We're going underground

We've been in Raglan since Thursday evening HelpXing with a family and now we're off again. Matt has felt under the weather most of the time we've been here :-( We didn't do anything very exciting in Raglan over the past few days, but today we are scheduled for a subterranean adventure! We're going to rappel 100 feet into a cave, float down an underground river in inner tubes, see glowworm displays of their own constellations, and rock climb out of the cave. It should be blast. We've been looking forward to this for months.

We're headed towards Auckland after our Waitomo cave adventure, but we'll be out of touch for a few days.

Carrie

Part 3 of 3 - Tongariro Crossing

The Central North Island Volcanoes, background to foreground: Mt. Ruapehu, Mt. Ngauruhoe, and the Red Crater of Mt. Tongariro

After finishing our Whanganui River trip, we set off to plan for the next day's hike. Tongariro Crossing is 6-7 hours one-way, so it is a good idea to make arrangements for a shuttle at one end or the other. Nearly everyone hikes it the same direction because it's easier that way, so you can either park at one end and then get shuttled back to the start, or you can park at the end and get shuttled to the beginning. We called a shuttle company on Tuesday afternoon to inquire about their hike-to-your-car shuttle availability for Wednesday. We had the option of 6:15 or 9:15, and in a moment of insanity for us night owls we chose the 6:15 am departure.

This particular shuttle company offered free camping to those who used their shuttle services, and we were more than eager to take them up on it. We have quite a good arrangement worked out for sleeping in the back of Lu. We move our bags and food boxes to the front seats and we stretch out on the mattress in the back. We even use a piece of cloth closed in a door (with an open window) as a screen to let some air in while keeping the bugs out. However, something went terribly wrong at this campsite. As the sun went down, the mosquitos came out. First we patched a little hole in our 'screen' and killed a bunch of skeeters. Then we closed the window behind the screen because somehow they were still getting in. We killed more. Matt kept cursing and hitting the overhead light to smoosh them, turning the light on and off as he hit it. We banged against the windows. Still more mosquitos appeared. We switched the air system to recirculating instead of outside air in case they were coming through the vents. Then Matt decided we should move the car away from the hedgerow and into the middle of the field. Still they pursued us. I'm sure the other people at the campsite thought we were nuts with all the banging and lights going on and off then moving the car into the middle of the field at 11 pm. Matt slept completely inside his mummy bag with EARPLUGS to block out the incessant buzzing. For those of you who don't know, Matt sleeps like a dead log and that was probably the first time in his life he slept with earplugs.

We woke up at 5 am on Monday morning with enough blood to get to the end of the trail parking lot on time for our 6:15 pickup. Tongariro Crossing is rightfully billed as the best one-day hike in New Zealand, but they say it's worth waiting for a fine day. Luckily for us, we didn't have to wait because Wednesday couldn'tve been finer. We arrived at the trailed just before 7 am and set off slightly ahead of most of the people from our shuttle. The sun hadn't touched our side of the mountain yet when we started and there was frost on the moss.



The first 45 minutes or so were pretty flat, and then we started a steep climb. Matt went up the slopes like a mountain goat or something while I lagged behind. At the top of that climb we had the option to hike to the summit of Mt. Ngauruhoe, the cone-shaped mountain in the above photo. We passed on this 2-3 hour side-hike and continued onwards. Looking down from where we came, we could see an endless line of ant-sized people on the trail below us. It looked like we were mostly ahead of the biggest wave of hikers.



We hiked through a large, flat crater before another steep ascent. Basically nothing lived or grew up here. We saw no plants, not even moss. No birds. We saw a few flies and that was about it. In spite of the obvious dearth of living things, some prize idiots thought that it would be ok to drop their banana and orange peels on the trail. I picked up the banana peel. Overall, there was basically no litter, especially considering that nearly TWO THOUSAND people hike this track on a fine day like ours.

At the highest point on the hike, we had Mt. Ngauruhoe behind us, the appropriately named Red Crater to our right, and the Emerald Pools in front of us. You could hardly ask for a better view.

The Emerald Pools are halfway through the hike and it was only 10 am! We stopped and ate part of our lunches before continuing onward (and downward). After a few hours of downward hiking we were well into tussock grass. After another hour we were in forest.

We found a really cool fungus growing right next to the trail in the forest. It looked like a flower or a misplaced sea anemone coming out of the ground! Kerry (aka Tokoroa bat girl) informed us that this was a type of stinkhorn fungus. We didn't notice the smell, but we did notice its attractiveness to flies.


We arrived at the end of the trail at 1 pm. There were about a dozen people hanging around waiting for a shuttle to pick them up (and the first shuttles don't come until around 3 pm). It felt awfully good to be able to walk straight to our car and take off our boots instead of having to wait around for a shuttle. We were pleased with our decision to take the early shuttle and hike to our car. For some of the hike we had people right ahead and behind us, but for a lot of it there weren't other people in sight. I think if we'd started an hour later we would not have ever escaped the view of other people. It took us 6 hours, which is the low end of the estimate for how long it should take, even with my slow uphill climbs compared to Matt's mountain goat stamina and agility. This was definitely the best day hike I've ever done.

I highly recommend checking out this area on Google Earth. You can follow the trail in most places. Unfortunately, the Emerald Pools are just at the edge of high and low quality images so you can't quite see all of them.

Trail Start: 39° 8'40.49"S, 175°34'51.69"E
Trail End: 39° 4'4.87"S, 175°39'24.52"E
Emerald Pools: 39° 8'4.75"S, 175°39'15.28"E
Mt. Ngauruhoe: 39° 9'22.59"S, 175°37'58.16"E

Carrie

Part 2 of 3 - Canoeing the Whanganui River

A family at the Quaker settlement in Whanganui successfully convinced us to do a 3-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River. It's listed as one of New Zealand's top ten "great walks" even though it isn't a walk at all. Basically that means it's on the must-do list for the outdoor enthusiast. This was our first "great walk" because they tend to be a little out of our budget, but we decided to do this one. We hired a canoe and gear from an outfitter called Blazing Paddles (recommended to us by Mandy and Nigel). On Sunday morning we showed up, packed our gear and food into waterproof barrels, and left Lu (our car) behind at the outfitter while we were transported to our launch site. Nearly all of their canoes were already on the water for the weekend, so we were the only people leaving on Sunday. This was excellent timing on our part because it meant that there were few other people on the river with us and we didn't have to constantly worry about passing or being passed. It started raining just as we were putting the canoe in the water, and then it cleared up for the rest of the day! The weather was perfect.



After about 6 hours of canoeing we stopped at John Coull Hut for the night. We were hoping to get a bed in the hut instead of having to use the tent we rented. There were only two other people who stayed at the hut with us that night. They were a nice British couple who were also doing a three day trip.



Sunday night, the two friendly hut wardens showed us the incredible display of long-tailed bats that appears each night like clockwork. Let me remind you that we spent two months trying to catch long-tailed bats. In that time we caught TWO and I think I saw (fleetingly) a total of about 7 bats flying around. Mostly it was just too dark to see them against the pine trees. We did hear them with a bat detector on most nights, but we rarely saw them. At this particular hut along the Whanganui River, there were at least EIGHT bats flying around above the trees near the hut before it was even dark! We were so amazed that we didn't even think to try and take pictures. We really wished we'd had a bat detector to hear all of them!After about 10 minutes, they all left and went to forage elsewhere for the night. Ai!

It poured on Sunday night and we slept horribly with visions of our canoe floating off down the raging, risen river, so we finally went and checked on our canoe at 5 am. We just turned it over and brought our paddles up, which we should've done to begin with.



Monday was just as beautiful as Sunday on the river. I never once saw trash in this river and we passed waterfalls every 10 or 15 minutes. There were lots of grey ducks (they look like female mallards) and goats along the river. The ducks are welcome but the goats are not. They hunt them from canoes in the winter to keep their numbers down.



Monday's canoeing was broken up by a hike to the Bridge to Nowhere. It's exactly what it sounds like. You can only get to it by hiking several kilometers or boating up/down the river and still hiking a few kilometers. The bridge was completed just in time for the last farmer to hike his was out of the wilderness that was his farm and let it return to bush. That's me on the Bridge to Nowhere.



On Monday night we stayed at another hut along the river. This time it was at a marae, which is a sacred Maori space with a meeting house. Our instructions from Blazing Paddles described a welcome ceremony that we would be expected to participate in, but we didn't encounter anything of the sort. Disappointingly, the only people around seemed to be very engrossed in weedwhaking. The marae was beautiful and had nice facilities. We stayed in a building next to the meeting house (pictured below).



That evening we played cards by candlelight with the lovely British couple who had the same itinerary. There was also a group of 10 other people there but there were still enough beds. No bats there, though.



It rained again on Monday night, but then was beautiful and clear for most of our last day. The biggest rapids are right at the end of the third day. Amazingly, it seemed to pour rain and blow like mad for about 5 minutes when we were trying to get through rapids. It certainly made it more challenging! We made it through all of the rapids right side up but did take on quite a bit of water on the last one. We were bailing the canoe as we pulled up to our pickup spot. We parted ways with our British friends and were picked up by Blazing Paddles with two other canoeists just as it started to pour. We both fell asleep in the truck on the way back.

After moving our gear back into Lu, we headed off to organize our next adventure: Part 3 of 3 - Tongariro Crossing.

Carrie

Part 1 of 3 - Taranaki

We left the Quaker Settlement last Thursday after a week of painting (well actually I didn't do any painting at all because I hate painting but I did do painting related things) we set off on further adventures.
One of the couples from the Settlement recommended that we take a canoe trip down the Whanganui River. They had taken the trip twice before and just thought it was a great time. So we are easy to sway on such things and we called up and made a reservation for that Sunday. Part 2 will talk all about the canoe trip but part 1 is about how we spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
We finished up and left the Settlement by about 2 and after some grocery shopping and other errands we took off in the direction of Mt. Taranaki (39°17'35.79"S, 174° 4'11.23"E). This volcano is gorgeous. When you look at it in Google Earth it looks like a huge circle from above. That's because the mountain is so symmetrically conical. Apparently it is often used as a stand in for Mt. Fuji in movies. We were both tired that day and so (after a few bookstores we decided to just head up to a campsite and settle in for the night ). While we dove up to the mountain it was all completely shrouded in clouds. No view at all. We parked in the parking lot for "Dawson Falls" (39°19.463' S, 174°06.269' E). Once we had set up camp in Lu we took the short walk down to the falls. They were pretty spectacular. I'm not sure if we've mentioned this before but we made the decision that in a nation with SO many waterfalls if one has a sign to it then it must be really something to see. So far we have not been let down by any of the named waterfalls.

After our short walk we settled in for the night, tried to watch a movie on the computer and went to sleep.
In the morning we woke up to better weather but we could still not see the top of the mountain (even though we were staying on it). We took a different hike. This time we went further up the hill to a place called Wilkies Pools (39°18.936' S, 174°05.674' E). As we walked the weather got better and better. The Sun was certainly out but the top of the mountain was still mostly covered. Wilkies pools are a series of pools created as this stream worked its way down the mountain and carved out the softer rock. There was a geocache that led us there but the real fun was once we got there. The first piece of the pools that we came to was shaped perfectly to be a 3 meter water slide. Those of you who came with us to the rock slide in VA will know how much fun it was. I was a bit hesitant (because I'm a chicken) but Carrie was all for it. After some careful analysis of the death potential Carrie climbed to the top and took the plunge.

It was very cold (snow melt really) but it was an awesome ride. After Carrie, I had to have a try and then Carrie went a few more times after me. It was great!
Once we had dried off and hiked back to the car we decided to go ahead and drive South to the coast and around on the coast all the way around the mountain. There are some small towns we stopped in and as the day went on it became clearer and clearer so we had some magnificent views of Taranaki.

We did a few geocaches along the coast (including one that was right near an old shipwreck) and ended up in the town of New Plymouth (39° 3'4.64"S, 174° 4'52.92"E). They had a nice art gallery full of crappy art and a great little museum. We did a few more geocaches and decided to hang out there into the night so we could watch for the comet. Right now the comet McNaught is visible here at night. I don't know enough about celestial bodies to know if you guys can see it too but it is really something to see. After we saw it the clouds came back in a bit and we decided to head to the campground for the night. We drove back up the mountain to another parking lot (S 39° 18.465 E 174° 06.025) up on the mountain. We were the only ones there until about 3:00 in the morning when this boy racer (that's what they call teenaged buys with big cars here) came up and started doing doughnuts in the parking lot. It scared us both awake but he left right away and actually it was nice of him to wake us. While we had been asleep the sky had completely cleared and the stars were clearer than perhaps I have ever seen them. We could see the Milky Way stretching right across the sky. It was gorgeous. I took a few pictures but you be the judge if they came out or not.

The next day we did a few more geocaches and then we drove along this long stretch of highway called "Forgotten World Highway." Basically it is just a really rural (even for New Zealand) road. It was nice and along the way we stopped at Mt. Damper Falls which is the tallest waterfall on the North Island.

After all of that it was Saturday night and so we stayed the night on the side of a river right down the road from our canoe outfitters. We were up bright and early the next morning to start our canoe trip but you'll have to read about that in part 2...

Matt

Our Mission and Addiction

While we were doing the bat thing in Tokoroa, Matt checked out a book from the library called Wrecked on a Reef. It was a true account of a shipwrecked crew on New Zealand’s tiny subantarctic Auckland Islands (S 50°48'30.04", E 166° 5'25.11") in 1865. The book was originally printed in 1866 and was reprinted in 2000. Matt decided right away that this book would be a perfect gift for someone he knows (sorry, we can’t tell you who in case you’re reading the blog). Ever since then we’ve been trying to find a copy of this book that we can afford. We’ve asked in every used bookstore we’ve visited in the past two months. It’s online, but unfortunately the only copies there are out of our price range. So, we’re on a mission to search every used bookstore, op-shop, Sallies (Salvation Army), antique store, and junk shop we pass.

Now Matt and I both like to read, and we like to have books. As a result of searching row after row of books, we find others we’d like to read. I find nerdy natural history books (most of which are too expensive) and Matt finds lots of fiction. Our small library of books no longer fits in its designated box. I think Matt has enough books to last him until the end of our trip. I was really hoping that Matt would part with some of his books after reading them, but he seems only to be acquiring books that he intends to bring back to the U.S. and keep forever. Books are our addiction.

By the way, we’re back online after a week tramping and canoeing in the bush. In the past week we've slid down waterfalls, canoed a river, hiked across volcanoes, and eaten lots of granola bars. Expect more tales and pictures of our adventures to follow shortly!

Carrie