New Zealand - the "we're going on an adventure" edition

Previously, Ness and I visited a bunch of waterfalls and also hung around Mount Doom for a while. Because obviously.

When we'd planned out our itinerary, we'd kept a free day in there with the idea that if it rained, we'd have extra time for hiking or whatever. Plus, we figured it would be good to have a day where we flew by the seat of our pants a little bit and had no idea where we were going to go or what we were going to do. Foolishly, however, we planned this day to be in an area where there's really not a whole lot to see or do besides more hiking.

So we figured that we'd head for the Forgotten World Highway and stop at anything interesting looking that we came across along the way. Well. We headed north along the highway and stopped at the Raurimu Spiral because a brown tourist sign suggested that we do so. It was pretty cool (more so if you're an engineer) but a little tricky to wrap your head around at first.

Model of the spiral

Actual spiral. You can see the gap in the trees and the tunnel on the right

Luckily, there was something up everyone's alley on the other side of the highway: a giant T. rex made of wood. BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY.

Clever Girl made a friend!

The road became a little hillier and we stopped at Piriaka Lookout where you can see clear back to Mount Doom:

We turned onto the Forgotten World Highway where things got even steeper, and we worried a couple of times that our teeny tiny hairdrier-for-an-engine car wasn't going to be able to make it. There were an increasing number of brown signs along the road, but when we pulled over, they all turned out to be for things that were a half hour tramp through a cow paddock and which recommended wearing gumboots. Which we had very little desire to do just to see the entrance to an old mine. So we drove on, and pulled over in a half-arsed "read the detailed sign through the car window" way for the next few. Until we got to Nevin's Lookout. It was a bit of a trek through a paddock gate and up a steep cowpat covered hill. But the view was totally worth it:

See? HILLY.

Eventually, after going through a completely awesome single lane tunnel through a mountain, we reached something relatively unexpected (although it WAS marked on the map, so we probably SHOULD have expected it) - nearly 20kms of unsealed road. We debated whether or not to drive through it, as the gravel was really coarse and we a) didn't have a proper spare tyre, just a space-saver one and b) were driving a car that had the hubcaps attached with cable ties. We dithered for so long that a massive Winnebago-y thing drove through, closely followed by a 4WD. We figured that would pack the gravel down enough that if we followed in their tracks, we'd be okay.

The gorge that the unsealed road ran through wasn't nearly as exciting as anticipated and by the end of it, we were both a little cranky (partly due to hunger, partly due to thirst, but mostly due to the fact that we'd turned the air conditioning off to help the engine along and the car was really stuffy and kind of dusty feeling...). There were several towns marked on the map, so we figured we'd stop in one of them for lunch. Except that they all turned out to be either closed (as it was a weekend) or nothing more than railway crossings. Eventually, hot and bothered and in desperate need of a wee, we reached the Whangamomona Hotel.

They could have served nothing but haggis and only had a squat loo, and I still would have been thrilled. Luckily, neither of those things were the case. After far too short a lunch break, we got back in the car and headed back the way we'd came with plans to stop for ice cream if/when we stumbled across one.

Of course, just to spite us, there was not a SINGLE PLACE SELLING ANY KIND OF ANYTHING until we reached Te Kuiti, a couple of hundred kilometres later. And by that point, we were over the idea of ice cream, so ended up with milkshakes from the cafe attached to the service station, which gave us the sugar rush we needed to get the rest of the way to Otorohanga, where we promptly checked into our hotel, sat around in our PJs for an hour or so, then headed out for dinner. After which we watched a random Topher Grace movie on TV and collapsed into bed.

All up, we (by which I mean Ness) drove about 600km on "highways" that were mostly twisty country roads populated largely by slow moving vehicles. We didn't really see anything particularly fascinating, and I managed to get sunburnt IN THE CAR. In short? If you add a free day to your travel itinerary? Make sure it's in a place where there's stuff that's actually worth seeing and doing without driving for several hours... Because it may start out like this:

Source

But it'll end up feeling like this:

Source

Also, if you're in New Zealand, don't trust the free maps that the hire car company give you. They're full of lies...

Next up, Waitomo makes up for everything.

K xx

New Zealand - the "one DOES simply walk into Mordor" edition

Previously, Ness and I explored some thermal stinkiness, visited an epic waterfall, and drove a really long way. Also, we stayed at a hotel that was far too posh for us, and we were the youngest people there by at least ten years.

We got up to be greeted by a gorgeous sunny morning. And, I discovered that if you were willing to stick your entire upper body (and your SLR) out of the window and twist around to the left, this was the view from our hotel room:

Not too shabby, huh? We kitted up, grabbed some breakfast, and headed out to do a couple of short walks. We'd originally been planning to do a longer one, but the forecast was for the weather to get crappy by early afternoon, so we figured it was probably best to not set out on a walk that would require us to spend three hours walking in the pissing rain to get back to the hotel.

We figured we'd do the longest one first to make the most of the good weather, and so headed out to Taranaki Falls. The walk itself was pretty easy - a couple of biggish hills, but with proper steps and plenty of places to convince yourself that you were stopping to admire the view:

After a little over an hour, we reached the Falls. They were a lot more impressive than I'd anticipated and I kind of wished there'd been a path down to the bottom so that we could see exactly how cold the water was. I mean, water that clear tends to indicate snowmelt, but it looked SO NICE...

Hiking fashion is not like regular fashion

The walk back took us past Mount Doom Ngaurahoe and Mount Ruapehu but was generally less pleasant than the walk TO the falls, due largely to the lack of shade. Still, the views pretty much made up for it:

I still giggle every time I see this

When we got back to the hotel, we jumped straight in the car and headed a little further afield. We started out with a walk that was meant to take 20 minutes but in fact took us less than five. It wasn't particularly picturesque either, so it's hard to imagine it taking 20 minutes even if you loitered to look at the scenery.

So we headed on to the walk to Tawhai Falls. It was a lot smaller than Taranaki, but you could get right up close. We spent 20 minutes or so clambering about the rocks and just enjoying things before a couple of middle aged tourists appeared and we thought it best to head off.

And then we decided to walk the Ridge Track. That proved to be rather steeper than we were anticipating, and by the time we reached the top and its (apparent) panoramic views, it became abundantly clear that there was some very heavy rain approaching. So we hightailed it back down the ridge (overtaking an incredibly annoying group of French people who abruptly stopped talking when I overtook them with a "Pardon. Merci!" on the way) and arrived back at the hotel juuuuuuuuuuust as it started to pour.

After showering and generally de-hiking-ing, the rain was just as bad. So we grabbed some books and headed down to the lounge where we spent the rest of the afternoon partaking in tea, cheese and crackers, and cocktails (Black Forest hot chocolate? YES PLEASE).

This is not Black Forest hot chocolate. Obviously.

We also did laundry because we're rock and roll like that. I mean, what else do you do while in Mordor???

Next up, we go on a random roadtrip of randomness. Because we can.

K xx

New Zealand - the "let's go to Mordor" edition

Previously, Ness and I went to Rotorua, which smelled bad but was pretty cool. Also, I got a hot chocolate with Harry Potter's face on it.

Our second morning in Rotorua, we headed to the Fat Dog Cafe for breakfast, which is a decision that I highly recommend. The cakes looked amazing and I strongly considered having cake for breakfast, but instead decided that porridge was the healthier option. I also ordered a hot chocolate, which didn't come with Harry Potter's face but which DID come with hundreds and thousands:

After breakfast, we hit the road and headed south for Wai-o-tapu. We got there just in time to see the tail end of the geyser eruption - unlike the ones at Te Puia, it's set off by adding a catalyst so that it goes off at the same time every day.

From there, we headed through the "thermal wonderland" as it's termed in the brochures, and a lot of it WAS pretty amazing despite the fact that I was a little miss cranky pants due to poor clothing decisions and a warmer than expected day:

From there, it was back on the road heading south. We stopped off at a couple of places along the way when the brown tourist signs on the highway tickled our fancy. At some, we didn't even get out of the car because there was an unexpected fee. At others, like Huka Falls? We were pleasantly surprised:

Two Olympic swimming pools worth of water go over the falls EACH SECOND. And the water was so pretty!!

We ploughed on to Taupo where we stopped for a wee spot of cake and some photos of the lake...

...then spent the rest of the trip driving in the rain.

Eventually, we arrived at our destination - Mount Doom. Okay, fine: Whakapapa Village in Tongariro National Park. Said destination caused us no small amount of giggling which you'll understand if you know anything about Maori pronunciations.

We grabbed a couple of maps about short walks from the ranger station then checked into our far-too-fancy-for-the-likes-of-us accommodation:

CHATEAU.

After locating our room, we decided that rather than spending what was left of the afternoon there, we'd spend it in the lounge with a drink. And, just before it got dark, the rain and mist cleared, giving us a pretty fabulous view of Mount Ngauruhoe:

Next up, we strap on our hiking boots to take the One Ring to Mount Doom go on a little hike. It's more exciting than it sounds, I promise!

K xx

Colorado - the "she wants to go right!" edition

*WARNING* This one is going to be even more picture heavy than usual. Sorry...


And so we come, as we inevitably must, to the conclusion of my (ridiculously longwinded) series of posts about my trip to the US. It's only taken me, what, four months to write about my six week trip. #GENIUS

(Incidentally, I was convinced that "and so we come, as we inevitably must" was a quote from something, so I Googled it. Apparently it's only nerds like me who use that. And people who write fan fiction about WRESTLING. *head explodes*)

ANYWAY. My last full day in Colorado, Lyndsy and I headed up to the mountains to look at the leaves. We started out by heading to Guanella Pass. The trees on the drive up were pretty spectacular up close. I *may* have almost fallen down a hill because I was looking at the trees while trying to change the lens on my camera, with the other lens clasped between my knees. #classy 

And the view from the top of Guanella Pass wasn't too shabby either! It WAS rather chilly though, so we didn't stay too long.

From there, we headed for the Peak to Peak Highway via Central City. With no GPS to rely on, our navigation was courtesy of print outs from Google Maps. Needless to say, things got slightly confusing when we took an incorrect turn in Central City. Especially as Central City has a ton of one way streets. But it worked out pretty well in the end, because we came across this random old cemetery that's filled with aspen trees. 

It was quite fun to wander through the trees and find graves hidden amongst them. Or it was, until we came across this propped against a tree:

Karen Warner. 'Til death do us part?

It's like the creepiest marriage proposal of all time. I mean, seriously. Why the hell is there a question mark?!?! O.o

We then came across this, which made us both laugh a little harder than it should have. Mostly because at first, I thought it was the middle finger that was raised. And then because they felt the need to clarify that "home" meant UP.

We eventually made it to the Peak to Peak Highway, and - along with half the population of Colorado - came across this patch of trees. We nearly got hit by a people mover from Kansas being driven by people who were either incredibly blind or just didn't care that there were pedestrians standing where they wanted to park their car. But it was worth it, don't you think?

From there, we went past another couple of 14,000 foot mountains before arriving in Estes Park. Upon arrival, we almost had an accident courtesy of a shit ton of elk (that's the collective noun for elk, right??) on the golf course, which people were stopping in the middle of the road to take photos of. We, being sensible individuals, drove over to the parking lot of the tourist information centre and walked back over to the golf course. At one point, we had to walk across a bridge and stopped to look at the salmon (?) that were trying to jump up the weir to get upstream. IDIOTS. After being amused by the doomed-to-failure salmon for a while, we turned to keep walking towards the golf course, and were met with this:

Me: (out loud) HOLY CRAP! (internally) AAAAAARGH, GIANT DEER THING COMING TOWARDS ME!!

Cop standing nearby: Just stay where you are, ladies. She wants to make a right.

Lyndsy: How does he know??

Me: Maybe elk have indicators?

The cop was right - apparently this particular elk was too lazy to jump the fence, and so was wandering up through the crowd to a gap in the fence. We stood around taking pictures of the elk for a while. There were a couple of males there, so there was some bugling going on, which was pretty cool. Sadly, I didn't think to use the video mode on my point and shoot because I'm a moron and left it in the car.  

Bugling!

Check out those insane antlers

Dawwwww, baby!!

This just made me laugh

There's only so much elk butt you can look at without getting bored. So after a while, we headed up to the Stanley Hotel, which was the inspiration for The Shining. 

The miniseries that was made in 1997 was actually filmed there. We were too cheap to actually do a tour (partly because one had just started, so we would have had to wait a millionty years for the next one), so we wandered around the foyer, peered up the staircase, bought a tacky postcard for my brother and headed off in search of ice cream. On the way to find ice cream, we found more elk. These ones used a zebra crossing rather than just walking into the road. That was weird. (NO ONE MAKE JOKES ABOUT HOW ELK AREN'T ZEBRAS. I'LL HURT YOU IF YOU DO.)

Anyway. We ended up in one of the many ice cream stores in town, and decided that milkshakes would be easier to drink on the trip back to Denver. They were delicious, but good GOD they were expensive! (Correct me if I'm wrong, but over $7 seems excessive, yes???) Upon arriving back in Denver, we picked up Lyndsy's husband from work, and headed out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant near their house. The next morning, which I foolishly assumed was my last day in America, I realised that I hadn't ONCE eaten mozzarella sticks. On mentioning this to Lyndsy, we decided that it needed to be rectified. So we went out to lunch at a pub near her house.

OH. AND. On the way in, there was a bus stop. At the bus stop, a lady was sitting with her toddler. Her toddler was rolling his large toy truck down a ramp and into the road, then walking out between parked cars to get it. #parentingfail

Waitress: What can I get you guys?

Lyndsy: I'll have [insert food here. I know it involved deep fried pickle bits].

Me: And I'll have the mozzarella sticks, and a side of mac and cheese.

Waitress: Anything else?

Me: *joking* Yeah, I don't think there'll be quite enough cheese involved in my lunch, so if you could sprinkle a little extra over the top...

Waitress: Sure thing! *walks off*

Lyndsy: I don't think she got that you were joking...

Me: Crap...

My mac and cheese was certainly very cheesy. On the plus side, it didn't taste like bonfire.

What an appropriate way to finish my trip to America - with a nice dose of heart disease ;)

K xx

PS. If you've missed any of this ridiculously drawn out series, you can check them out here:

What up, America!

Chicago, part 1 of a millionty

Ferris Bueller, you're my hero

Awesome sauce: A 20SB Summit recap

Chicago, the bloggy friend hilarity edition

Chicago, the "catching up with old friends" edition

Chicago, the "this is the last one, I promise" edition

Colorado, the "I'm a dirty slacker" edition

Colorado, the "doing touristy things in Denver" edition

Colorado - the "apparently banana is a confusing word" edition

Colorado - the "apparently Bigfoot lives in the Springs" edition

Colorado - the "I'm a forgetful moron" edition

Los Angeles - the "I'm not supposed to be here" edition

Washington - the "THIS IS NOT A MUSEUM" edition

Washington - the "Say cheese, weirdo!" edition

Washington - the "I'm lazy, so here's a bunch of pictures" edition

New York - the "subways and statues" edition

New York - the "Ground Zero" edition

New York - the "skyscrapers and vile drinks" edition

New York - the "Oooh, random parade!" edition

New York - the "Robot Busboy" edition

Roadtrip to Boston - the "Wheeee, internet strangers!" edition

Boston - the "cold and flu tablets, 1: Kirsti, 0" edition

Boston - the "why did we spend money on this?" edition

Boston to Colorado - the "a boob grope and a wedding" edition