Volcanoes!

Since leaving the farm, I've been doing so much, it's hard to really remember what! There is just so much to see!

The last few days on the farm we did a lot of digging, weeding and child minding and on Valentines day Hannah got a lovely surprise...a lady drove up the driveway and asked for a "Miss Smith" holding a bunch of flowers. They were from her boyfriend, Roy. Good on you Roy! I wish I had my camera at that point becuase she was speechless! And the colour scheme was amazing! Being a person that loves purple, it couldn't have been a better bunch of flowers! The only problem now was: how to transport them so they wouldn't die or fall over all the time? It became our mission to take care of them! lol!

On Febuary the 15th Hannah and I got our car packed and headed towards Whakatane (pronounced as fa-ka-ta-ne). It was only a short drive away (about 90 min) though we ended up being on the road for quite some time. It was just about lunch time when we left the farm, and while on the highway we were looking for a good spot to stop and have some lunch. I noticed that we were only two kms from the beach so we decided: why not? While having lunch we took the flowers with us and put them under a tree. The weather was gorgeous and the sea was beckoning...what was supposed to be just a bit of a "dip my feet in" thing, turned out to us changing into our bikini bottoms, thinking whe'd only go in till our waist, but then that was soon forgotten and we decided what the hell? We had a good dip. We did enjoy ourselves for a good 3hrs (the joys of having a car and being totally independent of bus times!) though Hannah unfortunately lost one of her rings while trying to put them somewhere safe. We spent a long time looking for the ring though no luck! We also both got a bit sun burnt:(

We went to a camping ground in Whakatane and walked around the town a bit and drank coffee! That night we slept in our car for the first time and we both didn't sleep so well....mainly becuase it was quite a warm that night. I went and slept outside at some stage of the evening and enjoyed looking at the moon and stars.... We got up at 5:30 (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!), had breakfast, packed up the car and headed for the office of Pee-Jay tours. For a lot of money, one could go with Pee-Jay tours and visit White Island - New Zealands only live marine volcano! Hannah and I decided to do it. It's not everyday you get to go visit a marine volcano! Only problem was that this morning there was a swell which meant that the boat couldn't get out of the harbour so they had to cancel it! It definately put out planning in a mess! We decided to go for the tour the following day and just do some walking that day. We walked for a good 3 hours and enjoyed a beautiful view and relaxed for the rest of the day. Hannah walked around the town for quite some time becaues she wanted to buy two dresses we had seen earlier (they were gorgeous) and two mugs for us. She was exhausted! We got to know a girl named Alex, our neighbour at the camping ground. She turned out to be from a village in Suffolk, England.....very close to where Hannah comes from. Another reminder of how small our world is! Alex was also going to White Island the next day.

The next morning Hannah and I got up at 5:30 in the morning once again! Today they were going! Yey! We boarded the boat and got a nice place outside. The ride to the island took a total of 80 min and it really didn't agree with Hannah, who felt very sea sick. But once on solid ground - if you can call a volcano that! - she felt fine. We were given hard hats and a mask each for if the air got too acidic for us. The tour starts with an introduction to the history of the island, and safety precautions, as well as information on what to do if there is an eruption, mudflow or flood. So yes, we were on an active volcano. The last time it erupted was in June 2000. It was a very exciting 90min tour/walk which took place on just one little part of the island, where you get to walk on the edge of the crater, see lots of steam come out of several vents, feel the water in a little stream which was really hot!, see a boiling turquoise lake, mudpools (where one of the people in our group had one of her feet disapear into the hot soil around the pool.....she came too close....but luckily nothing bad happened....she was mostly just in shock) and we got a chance to walk through the remains of what was once a sulphur extracting factory. They don't extract sulphur anymore beucase there just isn't a lot of it there. On the ride back we had lunch and Hannah had a much ride. When getting back into the harbour, the skipper had to wait for a swell (big wave) to get over the sand bar almost closing off the harbour to the the sea....he did a very good job. We made it to dry land! Yey!

We had coffee with Alex and then headed off to Rotorura. This town is famous for it's geothermal activity - geysers, mudpools, different mineral pools, colourful lakes - as well as being a sacred place for the Maori (the native people of NZ) precisely beucase of all the geothermal activity. When we arrrived, we decided to go to a Hangi feest that very evening. A hangi is a method the Maori use to cook their meals. The do-it-yourself-guide: dig a hole, build a fire, throw in rocks, put food on hot rocks, cover up and leave for 3 hours. They also had a concert that lasted for an hour and basically introduced us to a lot of different methods they used to train themselves for battle, their welcome chant as well as their war cry (they looked quite scary! Sticking their tongues out and making their eyes really big!). This concert was followed by the buffet, and then a walk in the woods where we saw gloworms, several pieces of Maori artwork as well as eels swimming in a crystal clear pool of water that had water bubbling up from the bottom (apparently this water bubbling up was 100yrs old!). We went to sleep with stuffed bellies!

The camping ground where we stayed in Rotorura, was situated nearby lake Rotorura. It had an area that was closed off becuase of a lovely mudpool bubbling away! At one side of the camping ground you could actually pitch up a tent on heated ground! A unique way to keep warm at night! lol! We spent the Saturday just wondering around Rotorura and visited the museum which was very interesting. On the way to the museum we came accross several different groups of people playing the bagpipe. It turned out to be some competition for the local area. Crazy! Hundreds of bagpipes on the other side of the world! Lol! You also see evidence of activity everywhere! Steam clouds everywhere! Learnt a lot about the volcanoes in NZ, the Maori people as well as their heavy involvement in the Second World War. It's been an education! I had never realised that NZ was so involved in the War! Every little town you go to will have some type of memorial commemorating the people that died from that particular village/town/city. The section about the war also screened a short film about the survivors of the war (most of the battalions went to North Africa) and boy did it get the waterworks running! Fighting a war so far away from home! Incredible!
That evening, Hannah wanted to go back to the place we had been to the night before for the Hangi, to get some things from the souvenier shop. I stayed behind at the camping and got to know our neighbours. Two hours later, a lady came to me to tell me that Hannah had called to say that the car had broken down and that she would come as soon as the AA had helped her. She did come back safe and sound, but we had to go to a garage to fix the car the next morning. So the rest of that evening we spent relaxing in the mineral pools.

Early the next morning we went to the mechanic (the only one open on a Sunday), but unfortunately they had just got a big job in that morning so we would have to wait till the next morning. So off we went, back to the campsite. The whole day we spent relaxing. I just read another book (the reception there had a book swop shelf, so I got some new books! Yey!) and relaxed in the pools. What a life! Hannah rearranged her flowers...some had had it but considering they had sometimes been left in a boiling hot car, they were doing very well.

The next morning, we got up early and went to the mechanic. He looked at it and thought we may need another alternator (crap! there goes the money) but then he realised there was a loose connection! One of the nuts hadn't been fully screwed on! Haha....so we got them to rewire the car and an hour later we were on the road towards our next farm in a little town called Ohakune. On the way we stopped to admire the views. We stopped just outside Taupo, to do a bit of a walk which included amazing coloured lakes, a geyser, a warm river, a wood carving workshop (where we talked to one of the artists about one of his projects: building a waka - a ceremonial Moari boat which looks a lot like a really very big canoe) and of course a lvoely coffee shop! My word! The amount of money that we spend on coffees!

On the rest of the drive to Ohakune, we saw Lake Taupo (a really big lake which is actually a lake on top of a volcano crater and the road that goes along the lake is infact the edge of the crater) drove through a small desert south of the lake and stopped to take a couple of pictures of a snow capped mountain. That mountain is infact also a volcano, and is in the Tongariro National Park (the oldest national park of NZ). We are now on a lovely farm where they have 15 horses and hopefully we'll go riding (planned to go riding today, but it rained a lot!) and the view ....well.....WOW! The view is of Mount Ruapehu, the tallest of the three volcanoes in Tongariro National Park and is 2800m high. It still has some snow on top, and when the sun comes up in the morning....well, lets just say it's beautiful!

Tomorrow I plan to go to the town and go on a computer with a fast connection to upload some pictures....I've got so many and am dying to share them with you! Hope all is well in your worlds!