So next on our journey we had planned on doing the Tongariro Crossing or "the climb to Mt. Doom". Unfortunately, we ended up getting the storm from the south island a bit sooner than expected and were left trying to figure out what to do next. Since we had skipped Rotorua to get to the caves in time, we decided to give it another go. It was a long day of driving and by the time we got there, it was dark and we just set up camp.
That morning I awoke to what might be the most obnoxious bird ever created. It had this awful squawk and then this scratchy one but I made it another hour of sleep before I went outside of the tent. Turns out there were tons of these evil dinosaur birds, including babies and they had ransacked everyone's food and were running wild. I've nicknamed them devil birds and spawn of satan. Either way, we all ended up awake because of them and were within walking distance of Lake Rotorua. It wasn't too impressive but the funny colored water and steam coming out of some nearby streams and holes were kinda neat.
Despite it being super early, Cayla, Lannette, and I decided we wanted to try some infamous Hells Pizza. We got lost on the way and found a cool park with bubbling mud and eventually got there. Guess we weren't thinking too well since it hadn't opened yet and kinda killed all the fun. As we wandered aimlessly in the city we saw a Native American performer (kinda weird in NZ) and went to pee in a McDonalds. When we came out, Kirk, another EAP kid traveling with another group was there. It was by far one of the weirdest, what are the chances kind of thing. He didn't have school for a while so we told him to meet us in Wellington in a few days. After enough time we got our pizza, and met up with the other group at Blue Lake.
I think after being on the go for so long, we kinda just wanted to chill out and relax. Blue Lake was perfect for that and we enjoyed our pizza, drew, wrote, and just actually got to know each other. We were a group joined by an interest in traveling the north island and eventually ending up on the south island so it was nice to spend time with everyone.
We hit the road once more and stopped at Huka Falls outside of Taupo. At first it looked kinda lame; there were too many people and it just looked like a giant river. But once you walked a bit more to the falls part, it got incredible. It was so incredibly fast moving and massive and the crashing of the falls was so deep, bubbles came up 30 yards away. All the fast moving water was a beautiful torquoise and the falls fell into a deep dark teal. It was one of those beautiful natural wonders that you feel like you could stay forever.
After dragging ourselves away, we decided to drive all the way to Wellington. This was going to be our longest drive but we assumed that finding a campground late in the day would be difficult. After fixing the lights so we could drive through the night, we drove all the way to the capital and arrived at 2 am. We were quickly hustled into our rooms at a hostel where I tried my best not to wake up the other people. Wellington is called Windy Wellington and it was definitely living up to it's name. The wind was blowing down the alley and I swore the building was going to come down a couple of times but having a bed for the first time in a few days helped make it easier to get to sleep. The following day was the one I had been looking forward to for years....
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