Tongariro Crossing, Waitomo Caves, Rugby

Today we wanted to hike the Tongariro Crossing up around a volcanic peak but were stopped by high winds and cold weather.We did a shorter 5 hour hike to the Tama Lakes instead. Here is the lower lake, and it was pretty cold at that point so I am quite bundled up :)













Yesterday we had a fun adventure type experience in the Waitomo caves, saw some underground glowworms, rode an underground river, and did some spelunking :) This is a shot of us rafting in the dark.















The day before was a Rugby game in Hamilton and some excellent surfing at the Raglan beach, but we crashed early afterwards (It slipped my mind that it was Robbie's birthday, sorry Robbie and Happy Birthday ).














The day before was our last day at Auckland. We experienced the trendy area of Auckland, Ponsonby, and hiked a little nearby hill overlooking the city. We actually stayed out until the bars closed that night!

First set of Photos.

Robbie holding our beer's in Auckland at noon on St. Patty's Day.




















A traditional Maori sculpture in the Treaty House in Waitangi.














Sailing on a ship used in the America's Cup.














Perched atop Mt. Rangitoto after a nice warm-up tramp (hike).

Well Here is some sort of Blog, although no promises on how often I will do this. Our itinerary so far has been fairly packed. We were in Auckland Monday and Tuesday and we climbed Mt. Rongitoto and went sailing in an old America's Cup ship (with very low winds). We then rented a car and had an exciting time driving a stick shift, on the left, through downtown Auckland, up hills, and trying to parallel park. Fortunately I didn't hit anything, and nothing hit me :) We drove up to Whangerai (Fang-er-eh) and ate dinner and went to a Bar for St. Patty's day. In the morning we made it over to a little town on the coast, Tutukaka, for a scuba dive trip at the Poor Knight's Island. It was a pretty amazing dive, we saw ray's, scorpionfish, lots of snapper, and schools of little fish. There was an underwater cave with a little air bubble in it that we were able to get into and breath :). Then we headed farther North to Pahea on the Bay of Islands and Robbie and I swam to one of the Islands, then swam back quickly because we forgot to put on sunscreen. Anyway good times so far and no major mishaps.