Easter weekend and I'm 21!

Dudes and Dudetts!
This past weekend was awesome. Here in NZ they have Monday and Tuesday off for Easter as well, so I had a six day weekend! A bunch of my friends and I decided to head down to Taupo. It was about a 6 hour bus ride on a real cramped bus. Once we got there we stayed a night at a hostel camping outside on tarps and sleeping in hammocks. We had decided to hike to Tongariro Crossing over the weekend. We woke up at 6am and got another bus to Tongariro. Once there we began our hiking journey. The scenery was absolutely amazing. Also located on the trail is Mt. Ruapehu- AKA Mount DOOM!!!!!!!!! It's 2797 meters high. It's very high up. After hiking the trail (can take up to 4 days, we only did a part of it) to a camp site, we dropped most of our gear and headed over to hike up the mountain. It was around 1:30pm. There is no set path on the way up the still active, but dormant, volcano. You have to make your own way up. Holy Crap! It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, physically and mentally draining and all I wanted to do was go down and sleep. (we had been hiking for 5 hours earlier) On the way up you can hear people yell "ROCK!" and you best look up and figure out if the rock is on it's way down to hit you or you might not have a choice about going down. Once we reached the top we realized we were out of water and three of us split an orange and 2 granola bars. That was the best orange I had ever tasted, EVER! I had taken about 3-4 hours to get up Mt. Doom. Getting down also seemed to be an issue, unless you know how to ski. If you found the right path, you could ski down the sand and gravel and reach the bottom in about 30-45 minutes. A dangerous but extremely fun activity. I did get a few bumps and cuts. While we were on the mountain we made sure to throw something "precious" into the crater- we chose the orange peels... We slept well that night after we got back around 8pm.

The guys I was with decided that since there wasn't a lot of food left, that they were too tired to continue, so the next morning we got picked up. I was Easter morning. I read the Easter story out of John that morning as the sun rose. An amazing sunrise service. I was a little torn about leaving so soon, but we had accomplished hiking up Mt. Doom, so I wasn't too sad. We went back that morning and met up with some other friends in Taupo. We hit the beach and relaxed the rest of Easter Sunday. Later that night, we went to an Irish pub with an all you can eat buffet! We had potato salad, lamb, ham, chicken nuggets, rolls, beef stew, salad, and some sausages. A good end to a relaxing evening.

The day, Monday, began well. I had slept in a hammock the previous night and woke up to birds singing in my ears. They even tried to build a nest in my hair.... We were going white water rafting this afternoon with the three people we met up with. This adventure was absolutely stunning and awesome. We went on Kiwi River Safaris. We rafted the Tongariro river, a grade 3 rapid. (on a scale to 6) Not to easy, not too hard. The six of us were in one raft, talk about a fun experience. The whole time we kept our river guide, MP, laughing. And he had some good jokes and stories as well. He spends half his year in NZ and the other half guiding in the states. He has worked at the same river Mom, Dad, and Jeremy rafted when we were in CO. The rivers in NZ are very secluded compared to the states. We only saw the other rafts. The cliffs were stunning and covered in lush green trees. The rocks seemed to hang in mid air as we passed under them. (the tree roots kept them from falling on our heads) The trip was a total of 2 hours on the water, over 50 rapids, and a Subway sandwich to finish off the trip. All for only $99. Highly recommended if you ever find your way over to Taupo. This one rapid took us straight into the side of the cliff, on the bounce back I fell out of the raft and into the water. I was the only one that went swimming that day. I hurried back into the raft as we came up on some more rapids. The people in the boat said all they saw was me in the boat one second and then I had disappeared underneath the other second. I was a fantastic trip. I learned that in NZ there are schools were you learn how to be adventure sport guides, rafting, kayaking, hiking, climbing, and so on.

Tuesday morning 4 of us headed out to Huka Falls. The river that fed to falls was soo clear and deep at the beginning and had a huge current running through it. I would have been nice to dive if I knew I wasn't going to be swept into the falls. It was beautiful.

Our bus left at 3:30pm on Tuesday and we got back around 9pm. I worked on a paper that I had due on Thursday. Wednesday came about and I continued to work on the paper when I wasn't reading all the awesome birthday cards and emails. Thank you all soo much. My roommates made me supper that evening. It was awesome. Around 7 we (me and 40 of my friends) Decided to head out to do a little karaoke. I sang a lot of songs and my friends helped make the birthday a great time. The whole bar sang happy birthday to me. And this one girl brought me a homemade cupcake. (Had to make when you only had a convection oven in our apartments). I had a fantastic night. This weekend I hope to go diving at a spearing competition. We'll see if that works out. Thanks again for all the birthday wishes and cards. I made it to 21!!!!!!!!!!!!