Sweet Azz!

Greetings from Wellington, NZ. I previously wrote a long post when we got to Auckland but my computer minutes ran out and I lost it all. Because of pricing and timing, we weren't able to locate a camper van, but we ended up with a lovely "Nissan Sunny", which is approximately the equivalent of a 1991 Nissan Sentra. We drove south to Waitomo, which is famous for their km and km stretches of several caves, and opted for a 7 hour journey through one of the caving systems. It was quite an awesome adventure- 100m descent into the cave by abseil followed by hours of swimming, hiking, rock climbing and exploring. These caves are especially famous for gloworms, which are insect larvae that light up to attract prey, they look like little green stars and the hundreds of thousands of them that live on the cave ceilings look like constellations of stars.

Following Waitomo, we headed towards Turangi, which is close to one of the most famous day treks in all of NZ called "The Tongariro Alpine Crossing". This was an ~7.5 hour hike ascending an active, but dormant volcano, then crossing through several thermal lake/craters and then finally descending down through lush forest. I believe Jason's review of this day will be mor accurate and inspiring. I was in a piss poor mood for about 10 hours straight and after falling and twisting my ankle for the (literally) 7th time I said "I hate this place! It's totally overrated, I can't wait to get the hell out of here" Leave it to PMS to ruin a perfectly good tramp. Jason was a really good sport with my bitchiness, I have to give him 2 eprops...thanks dear!
Today Jason drove all day further south to Wellington, where I am currently blogging. I MUCH prefer Wellington over Auckland. It has a more laid back vibe and seems less pretentious than its sister city. Maybe I've done enough rural,desolate, rolling landscapes so I enjoy this city.
Overall New Zealand's scenery has lived up to its reputation. It is truly such a GREEN and lush country. My favorite scenes are seeing livestock in there "natural" habitat- munching lazily on acres upon acres of grasses vs jailed up in some pen, like in the States. If I come back in my next life as a protein source for humans, I'd like ot have lived my life in New Zealand. Needless to say, I'm enjoying the red meat here.

Our lodging has ranged from creepy, bug-invaded farmstays (Waitomo) to modern, ultra-green and super clean hotels (Wellington). Our average stay per night is about $30, but we're trying to keep it lower to account for the lengthy duration of our overall trip. To further decrease costs, we are cooking dinners in the hostels. One night we went vegetarian and ate a huge head of cauliflower and corn that we bought from a hwy farmstand. The next night I cooked my staple: broccoli, chicken and brown rice. Hostel life has taken some adjusting, but not too bad. I am not really looking forward to the rehydrated food I'll be forced to eat during our, possible, 4 day hike in Abel Tasman (next few days)

Hope everyone is doing well, we wish you were here with us!

Jen