A Southern Belle's Baedeker

Happy to say that I made it to Auckland with no incident. The airports were deserted from Atlanta, to SFO and Auckland. I really can't believe how smoothly the travel went. On the flight from Atlanta I got the exit row, bulk head seat. On the SFO to AKL leg, when I checked in the NZ Air attendant told me that she had one window seat open and that she could move me from the center seat in the back of the plane that I was currently assigned. Yippee! Turns out my window seat was just behind first class, had no middle seat occupant, and the lady in the aisle seat, Shirl, was a dead heading NZ Air flight attendant. She was so sweet and had the crew hook me up with champagne, meals and goodies from first class. The crew was great and the service amazing.

We landed over an hour early - 5:00 am Monday morning. So I am watching Auckland wake up. I took a shuttle to the hotel and they are holding on to my bag until they can get a room cleaned up for me. I am dying for a shower, and I suspect my fellow caffeine junkies at the Columbus Coffee would appreciate if I showered too. I think I will walk over to the sky tower before lunch, and then down to the marina later today. I am going to try to scope out a good location to watch the super bowl, everyone I have talked to wants to know who I am cheering for. I suspect my Southern Accent is a little tough for some to understand - I am getting some "Bless Her Heart Looks" - I think they think I might be a little special :-)

Today all the members of the Tour (http://activenewzealand.com/) met up at the Quest Hotels in Auckland, 7 in total. 3 Americans including myself, 2 Brits and 2 Canadians. We loaded up on the van and headed over to Orakawa Beach in the Rottorua Region. I'm trying to remember the Maori meaning for the words – Roto means Lake and Rua means long, (I think). The beach is so beautiful. The water is aqua blue and the beach meets cliffs. We hiked up around the cliffs and back, maybe 6km round trip. When we got back to the Van, Grant, or guide, had set up a gorgeous lunch. Vanessa, Gweno, Rick and I wanted to take a quick swim so we did a quick change and headed out to the COLD water. This is definitely not the Atlantic. The waves were huge and there was a surfing class in the water nearby. But we played in the water and bodysurfed until we were breathless. I got some water rammed in my ear by one of the waves. Uggh, I'll try to find some alcohol and dry it out. After lunch we headed over to another beach about 30 mins away to hike cliffs nearby, but the cyclone that came through last week caused massive landslides so the hikes were closed, so back to the water :-)

On the way to the hotel we stopped to check out some kiwi farms. Who knew that Kiwi's grow on vines? They look like massive grapevines with brown kiwis. They won't be harvested until March sometime. Right now the only Kiwi's in the store are from California. Kinda weird.

The Lodge is great. Right on the lake. Vanessa, Grant and I are roomies. Grant is just gonna have to be one of the girls. We cleaned up and headed over for dinner in a cute cafe in town. Most everyone tried the Lamb. My stupid ear is still full of water and the Pharmacy was closed after dinner. I hopped into a bar next door and got the very sweet bartender to give me a tiny bit of rot-gut vodka for my ear. Mom always dosed my ear and her tonic with vodka in the summer time – can't hurt!

Started the morning checking out some of the geo thermal activity in town. New Zealand is very much an active Volcano chain, with evidence everywhere. You can smell the sulfur in the air and see steam from active sites most places.

We headed over to Lake Tarawera for a 20KM Hike. It's 10.5km up to the top of the ridge and then back down. I'll put in a few pictures. It was a really beautiful hike and a good distance. We packed our lunch and ate it at the top by Humphrey's bay. Grant got stung by a bee and poor Michael slipped off the side of a ledge. The hike went through a fern forest that is just amazing. These ferns are the size of trees, and look something like a palm. Very prehistoric. The Cyclone had just been through less than two weeks ago so lots of trees were down on the trail. Probably about 5 times each direction we had to hike our packs off and crawl on our stomachs under the logs to continue the hike. Maybe this should have been a sign, but we kept on :-) By the end of the hike, we were pretty beat, but really gorgeous forest hike. On the way back I got a little car sick riding downhill on the curvy roads. I felt like a kid, I at least managed to grab my towel to puke into. Oh well, it isn't a car trip if I don't throw up. The guys were so great, they plan to put me in the front seat for the rest of the rides.

After a quick clean up and drinky-pooh at the Lodge, back out to the Maori hangi (feast). It is held on Maori tribal land and is a show of the Maori culture and then a dinner. The host for the night had us pick a “chief” for the nite from all the visitors, our chief was from South Africa. He then had everyone announce which country they were from. We ended up being a tribe of 20 nations. The host was really amazing – he was able to say a few words in greeting in every language of each country. Even if it was simply “save room for chocolate cake!” He greeted people from Sweden, France, South Africa, Lebanon, Wales (in Welsh), Israel and on and on. We then went to the cultural show which is put on by the chief's family. It is really amazing. They are all traditionally tattooed. The face tattoos are amazing. The women only have their chins tattooed, with an owl, and the men have their face tattooed with the 4 Maori Birds. The Bat on the forehead, the Parrot on the nose, the owl on the chin and the Kiwi on the cheeks. The Left side in the Mother's family's design and the right the Father's (I may have that backwards). The danced the Haka, which is the way warrior's prepare for battle. When they put their tongue out, it is to look like the spear of the sword. A really amazing culture. Hopefully I can write more later when I get a chance.

Yeah!! This morning we headed over to Whakarewarewa Forest to mountain bike with the gang at Planet Bike. What a great group. We had two guides Dave and Carrie. Whakarewarewa Forest is owned by a timber company and has allowed mtn bike trails to be built throughout the area. This is also a water treatment area. The processed water is spread in areas throughout the forest as a reclamation process. It used to be put back through the river, but the Maori really objected because to them the water is sacred. So they devised a plan to process the water and then spray it on the forests where it seeps into the land and back into the water through the aquifer.

Dave took us for a practice ride we he could suss out our skills. I got confused by my gears – they go down instead of up on the big gear. Kinda weird, so I kept thinking I was in like 2/2, but I was in like 2/8. Once I worked that out, things went much smoother. We ended up splitting into 2 groups. 1 a little more advanced and a beginner group. Believe it or not, I made the cut for the advanced group. We did several great single tracks. Rode for about 2 ½ hours. You could hear me coming cuz I couldn't just resist some yahoos along the way. Not too technical, but we did have several drops that snuck up on you. The last run was a ride called Dragon's Back. It was a series of ups and downs, climb and descent – you could really get some good speed going. We all came out of the forest with big grins. Carrie said she could tell we all had fun because we were all picking bugs out of our teeth!

Once we rounded all up we had lunch in town. I made Vanessa (pharmacist) go to the Pharmacy with me to see if we could find something beside vodka for my ear. I'm going to try some swimmer ear drops – at this point I can't hear out of my right ear. I feel like someone's Grandma always asking people to repeat what they are saying. Grant has taken to looking at me and just mouthing words to give me a hard time. We headed over to the Creel Lodge for the next two nights. This is right near Lake Taupo – the largest volcanic crater lake in the world. The lodge is on the Tongariro River and is one of the best fly fishing locations in the world. I think I have several friends who will wonder why I didn't get any fishing in on this trip.

Ok – it isn't actually Mt. Doom, it is the peak just next to Mt. Doom, but I new all my geeky little hobbit lovers would know what I was talking about. Jeeze, our hike was just as tough as Frodo's. The entire hike is over 19 km, which doesn't sound horrible, but the terrain is amazing. It looks like you are walking on the moon the majority of the time. All the soil is loose “scree” - pumice type soil. The climbs up the first peak are straight up and there are times when it is open ridge. The highest point is 1886 meters. When we got to Red Point, the highest elevation is wide open and you can see across the crater. The descent is perilous – straight drops down on either side. And because of the Scree, you have to almost “glisade” down the mountain. I accomplished this by sitting on my butt very often. From the highest point, it is still another 4 hours to finish the hike. All of which is on narrow ridges and climbs over rock. The last hour you hike through the rain forest, finally ending the hike at 1000 meters lower elevation than you started.

After the hike we soaked in some hot springs. I thought they were just a little creepy. They pump water into cement pools that are about 10' x 10'. The place looked like a derelict city pool. I could take about 7 minutes in the pool before my brain started fixating on the last time the water was changed or the pool scrubbed down.

Still can't hear out of my damn right ear.