Well after 2 months of adventure coming to me without even leaving Auckland, I finally feel I'm ready to head out and seek an adventure of my own choosing. Having clients and coworkers around for the last couple of weeks have kept things lively and interesting at work but I was defiantly ready to head out for something a little different.
So to maximize my useful travel time I decide to build my first week away around the Easter long weekend. And as usual given the opportunity to climb outside I will, more often than not will jump and the opportunity. So Alan, mike and I head out early Friday morning to get to Froggatt ledge the same places just outside of Cambridge that I went to the first weekend I was in NZ. Well actually not that early . . . I wanted to be on the road by 7:00 but I couldn't convince my friends that it was worth the early start. The I told you so's started coming soon after we got on the motorway and promptly got slowed to a crawl stuck in the Easter weekend traffic. So finally at about 12 noon we finally arrive and the climbing site ready to pull down . . . um sorry that's a climbing term meaning to crank hard or send big or . . . . well you know, I was excited. So eagerly I hop out of the van and take a quick scan of the other people at the crag not expecting to recognize any faces I was however surprised when I did. Now you wouldn't expect to run into a friend from your home town randomly in the middle of some country on the other side of the world but here I did, not more that 5 meters from where I stood was Graham former employee of The Boulders Climbing gym and climbing partner of times past. I was dumbfounded and I still can't believe how crazily random it was that we ran into each other in the middle of NZ. So he joined our little climbing troop for the weekend and subsequently has been traveling with me since.
After a great 3 straight day of hard cranking I came out of the weekend with a new personal best and feeling stronger than ever, a great way to start a road trip. And start it I did, with my new tag along from my home town we left the crag at about 5:30pm and headed south to Taupo. With grand designs for the following day. After about 2 hours of driving we arrive at Taupo just as dusk was starting to fall. Unfortunately due to some poor navigating by yours truly and a little bum luck we didn't end up finding our campsite till well after dark. Fortunately it was a free campsite and it still plenty of space left despite the long weekend crowds.
The next morning we were awakened but the joyous sounds of children at play (Read: screeches of little devils wreaking havoc) ok both are a bit of a hyperbole but I think you get the picture. After packing up our site we decide to head to the Waikato River falls which we found were only 2 min's from out campsite at Riches farm. The Waikato River drains Lake Taupo and hosts many of the tourist activities such as Jet boat touring and bungie jumping off a cliff in to the river. After a short self guided tour of the falls we headed across the Highway to the "Craters of the moon" a walk that takes you through a highly active geothermal area with many craters and sinkholes. We then head back into town for a bite of lunch, mmm meat pie! From there we went to find a hot spring that flows into the Waikato just between the bunjie zone and the falls, it was good timing because after a weekend of hard climbing and no showers . . . well you could imagine. FeeIing refreshed by a little natural bath and hot/cold treatment we headed back into town where I headed down to the harbor to take a little boat tour on the lake that takes you out to the Maori rock carvings. There are a few boats do this run but the one I chose was the Sailing Ketch Barbary, (apparently famed as once belonging to famous actor Errol Flynn) this proved to be a good choice as there was a bit of a breeze and so we actually got to do some sailing and the atmosphere was very personable not very touristy like the other 2 companies seemed to be. Our tour guide was Skipper Dave, who offered to have anyone who wanted to try their hand at sailing to take the helm and help him sail, no one was very keen so I ended up spending most of the trip either trimming sails or at the helm, super fun! After about a hour and a quarter we arrived at the carvings, they were quite impressive, even if they were done with modern conveniences such as scaffolding and modern tools. The Carvings were completed over the course of 2 summers by I think 7 different Maori artists with the intention of raising the Maori profile in the area. Little did they know it would prove to be huge tourist attraction that is has become today. About 3 and a half hours after we left the dock we returned slightly more tanned and a little friendlier, after catching up with Graham we jumped back in the car for a short 1.5 hour drive north to Rotorua.
Stay tuned for more NZ travel adventures! In the next episode, Birds with soft beaks?! And Zorbing!
