This has been the best Christmas in summertime ever!
Christmas Eve was spent shopping in town and avoiding the buying frenzy. Once we bought our groceries and Santa hats, it finally started feeling like Christmas! Back at the hostel, there was a bottomless supply of grilled sausages starting from 4pm until late. Free meat & beer! Everybody at the hostel gathered around the BBQ and had drinks and good cheer. The festivities kept on going through the evening, until people started crashing in various places. With the exception of a dance party in the lounge, most of us retired to bed around midnight, since we had all been celebrating from mid-afternoon.
Christmas day! I can honestly say that not only was it the best day I've had in NZ and the best Christmas ever, but from beginning to end it was also one of the best days I've had in awhile. The five of us (me, Marcie, Diede, Dugan, Elias) brought Christmas to us - and we did it proud. It wasn't a white Christmas, but a very sunny one indeed. In the morning, We all groggily congregated and made a brunch feast fit for champions: Kiwi Toast, BBQ'd bacon (amazing), fruit and mimosas (champagne & OJ). We also opened our gifts from the hostel: gingerbread cookie and a lotto ticket. I won $10. Score!
In the afternoon, we all headed to the nearby hot springs 30 minutes out of town and got our soak on. It was blazing hot, but we all managed to sit in the thermal pool for a good while. Luckily it was a mix of hot and cool, so our shoulders were scalding hot while our bottom halves got some respite from the heat.
Post-soak, we headed back to the hostel to make the mother of all Christmas dinners. Everybody was cooking at the hostel, but with 5 people doing their own jobs everything was prepared in a flash. I was happy because we had gone with lamb rack (a Liu family tradition). Except this time, it was BBQ all the way. The dinner menu went: grilled lamb rack, mashed potatoes, mashed yams, grilled veggies and salad. Between that and dessert (TWO -chocolate cream mousse and apple pie) we did our gift exchange game and got silly over mulled wine. I got a pack of small plastic ninjas, water balloons and chocolate wafers. And everyone got a moostache (European pronunciation)! Our packed day concluded with the viewing of Love Actually in said moostaches, making it a very itchy movie. All in all, what a fantastic day!
Of course, I can't forget that I need to recap the glory of being in Mordor last Friday, aka the Tongariro Crossing. It's a 20km hike that goes through different volcanic landscapes and includes the famous Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings. We got picked up at 5:30am on Friday by a shuttle and dropped off at the start of the hike. Because it's 20km one way, the shuttle goes to the finish line for pick up. At 7:15am we set out. I was pretty intimidated in the beginning based on the info sheet they gave us about the difficulty levels, but I think NZ hiking standards are a bit more exaggerated than Canada. The first bit was easy, and even the so-called 'Devil's Staircase' wasn't too bad. The landscape was impressive, with volcanic mountains and solid lava flows surrounding us on all sides.
After two hours, we got to the optional but most important part of the hike: Mt Doom, actually known as Mt Ngauruhoe. From the base, it's an intimidating looking fella. Also, the path is nonexistent, although since there were lots of hikers around, you can just follow people's steps. The mountain was basically all loose rocks and dirt, so you really have to plant your feet in properly. It wasn't as steep as I had thought, but it was still a good hour and a half to the summit. But once we got there, what a rush of triumph! The view was amazing with the Emerald Lakes in the distance, plus you can look down into the crater of the volcano. No lava or hobbits to be found, though. The hardest part for me was going down; it took me a long time to keep my balance in the loose sand and falling rocks. My feet and knees were already getting tired. And to make things worse, since that was the optional part of the crossing, we still had the real hike (3 more hours) to go! The hike went through the Red Crater Ridge down to the blue green sulphuric pools of the Emerald Lakes, another hour to the Ketetahi Hut and finally 2 hours down to the car park, a downhill but tedious walk down through the mountains and a forest. The rest of my tramping party (tramping = hiking in NZ, hehe) zoomed through the last 6km. I managed to keep their pace for awhile but at some point with 3km to go my legs gave up and I decided to enjoy the scenery instead and catch the later bus.
Sadly, our hostel doesn't have a hot tub, but a hot shower was enough to suffice. Although the dirt came off, the smell of glory over Mt Doom lingered far into the night. Trust me, that stuff does not wash off easy.
I almost wanted to stay another night in Taupo, since I didn't see anything because of Christmas. But it was time to move on. Boxing Day morning, it took me and Diede forever to hitchhike to Napier. We ended up walking to 4 different spots with a multitude of Kiwis giving us their well-intentioned but contradictory 2 cents on where to stand. I probably won't hitchhike out of a big town again. Finally, an hour and a half later, we ended back at the same area we started with and got picked up by a woman and her young son. She told us that the only reason she stopped was because her son saw our sign to Napier said, "Those girls can't walk all the way there." So bless him and our post-Christmas miracle!
Napier's all about the wine and art deco buildings that were built after a big earthquake in 1931. There are nice cafes and boutiques, purple flowered trees like Mexico, plus a rocky beach, but not much beyond that. Looking forward to New Year's in windy Wellington.
Hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday. Talk to you in 2012!
