Taupo, Mount Doom, and Wellington

Hey everyone! We've made it to the South Island and are staying in a gem of a hostel called The Bug. One of the best parts about staying at this place is...FREE HIGH SPEED INTERNET! The reason I'm so excited about this is because high speed internet and free hardly ever go together in Kiwi-land. Anyways, In the past three days we've visited wonderful places on the North Island. After Rotorua, we headed to Taupo (known as the skydiving capitol of New Zealand) and saw the beautiful Waikato River (the longest river in NZ), Lake Taupo (the largest lake in NZ), and Huka Falls. Taupo was great and as a tip to future travelers to New Zealand, we'd recommend skipping Rotorua altogether and heading straight to Taupo.

We didn't get in on the gorgeous skydiving (~$400/person), but we did some beautiful hikes that really showcased Taupo's natural beauty.

We also went to a lesser known attraction called the Honey Hive. New Zealand is known for their various types of honey and this place allowed us to have free samples of everything from lavendar honey to high quality mead. Ryan insisted on acting like a honeybee afterward... After wearing ourselves out from hiking, we slept well and headed to Tongariro National Park. The Park is one of three World Heritage Sites in NZ, and one of its three volcanic

peaks (Mt. Ngauruhoe) makes a cameo appearance in the Lord of the Rings films as Mount Doom. It's still an active volcano and quite the scene to behold. There were other hikers also there making a much more hardcore trek than the two of us...to be a serious hiker you'll need hiking boots, bandanas, a backpack, and walking sticks! Ryan and I had shorts and a tshirt on along with our running shoes...I also wore my fedora which probably made me look really lame to the hardcore hikers. After gazing at Mount Doom for a few minutes, we headed back to the car for a 4 hour drive to Wellington. We stayed in a great little hostel called Moana Lodge about 25 km outside of Wellington but RIGHT on the beach. It was beautiful! We drove into Wellington city for dinner, ice cream, and a short trip to the famous Te Papa Museum. Our time in Wellington was far too short, and we wish we'd had longer in the museum because it was really the most fascinating museum I've ever been to (very interactive)! It was nice to see where I was born though :-)

We left our hostel at 6am to get to the Cook Straight Ferry Terminal and took a 3-hour ferry to the South Island. We've been told by pretty much everyone that the South Island is even more beautiful than the North Island...we're not sure how this is possible but we'll spend the next 9 days seeing if it's true.