Going Out With A Bang

At the end of our last trip with Mt. Ngauruhoe in the background. You might recognize it as Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.


With lighter packs, busted boots, and a full (4G) memory card, we walked out of the New Zealand Hills for the last time on Sunday. And what a finale of a trip is was. We were in New Zealands first and the world's fourth National Park, Tongariro National Park. It was the most diverse trail we have hiked here, and possibly ever. We hiked through alpine tussock, lush beech forests, desert, and 3 kilometers of paved road. We hiked around and on three separate volcanoes. One of which last erupted in 2007. Neat. Our second day of the trip was really just a treat. It started out with me braking a boot lace. This was merely just a minor inconvenience. It wasn't even a challenge for Clay's MacGyver skills, and he had me hiking ready in no time. But even his Eagle Scout skills couldn't help a couple days later when the side of my boot (same boot) ripped completely away from the sole. This is the same boot that has already been to the cobbler once on this trip. A couple hours after the boot mishap Clay had a spontaneous nosebleed. We eventually got that under control but not before creating a Haz Mat scene all over the trail. After another hour of hiking we found ourselves walking through the most hanus weather we have experienced in New Zealand. It pretty much just came out of nowhere. We had started off that morning with blue skies. But it was now sleeting sideways and the wind was making it impossible to walk straight. The wind was blowing so hard it was blowing snot out my nose completely unprovoked by myself. Just wanted to give you all a reference. Visibility deteriorated down to a couple meters. We just put our heads down and walked as fast as we could through a section of track that is regarded to be one of the most scenic in New Zealand. We couldn't see each other let alone the scenery. The weather did not let up and eventually we got to a very full hut. Although it was a pretty miserable day it was the only day of bad weather for the seven days we were out. Sweetness. So thankfully the next day we were able to do a bit of backtracking to see what we had missed. It was totally worth the extra hiking. We are now working are way back to Auckland to fly to LA on the 30th.* Then we will start retracing our steps and trying to gather back all our worldly belongings scattered throughout the Western United States.
Should be fun ;) Sunset behind Mt. Taranaki. Mt. Taranaki is another volcano on the west coast of the North Island. About 250 kilometers away from us in this pic. Mt. Ruapehu. Last erupted in 2007.
Mt. Ruapehu. Some pretty awesome weather.
That's just good advice.

*Just going to throw this out there any case anyone has any great ideas. Clay and I will be flying into LA on March 30th. And getting to and from our car in Joshua Tree National Park has proven to be the most difficult part of this trip. Anyone with any great ideas shoot them our way :)