Kia Ora Campers! If you haven’t quite caught on by now, Kia Ora (pronounced Key-Aura) is Maori for Hello (and goodbye i think). The "Aloha" of New Zealand. There’s this great commercial with people camping and this guy who’s disappeared and…well, I guess you’d have to see it to find it funny. Life continues going very well on this side of the world, which sadly is now in the depths of winter, however we're now past the shortest day of the year with only 9 hours of sunlight. Auckland however, does not get particularly cold—maybe 10 at the lowest during the day, which is around 50F, tho the nights and mornings can be bitterly cold. I’ve come to believe that Kiwi’s just like being cold. It must be some strange form of self punishment because not a single house I’ve been in has central heating. And I know I just said it doesn’t get that cold, but when you don’t have any heat in a house/flat and you’re getting out of a warm bed, trust me, it’s cold.

I’ve been getting lots of new insight on travel blogs and perhaps on how you dear reader, feel when reading my blog. The woman who I’m covering for at work is on long term service leave and has been on a yacht sailing around the Mediterranean—to Barcelona, watching the Americas cup in Valencia, to Ibiza and the Balearics and she’s also going to Cannnes film fest and the Monaco grand prix (not to shabby a holiday huh?). Anyways, the owner of the yacht she’s on has a blog and I’ve really rather enjoyed reading it. Some of the detail really just puts you in the action and it sounds like a fabulous trip! For those with curious minds it’s at http://www.unrealtv.co.nz . Surprisingly I’ve never really read any other travel blogs of people’s trips. That being said, I’ve really into travel books at the moment. Not your run of the mill travel guide, but writers talking about their own experiences traveling. I blame Bill Bryson really. At the moment I’m finishing up “A Year in the World” by Frances May. This woman so succinctly sums up my passion and feeling for traveling into some of the loveliest phrases. "The urge to travel feels magnetic"-- Frances May. I think there’s also a thrill or rather just a smile having been to some of the places she visits. Her writing is reigniting a desire, a passion in me to travel--Especially knowing that Asia, this seemingly unfamiliar continent, is suddenly at my feet.

"Only in looking back do you find those crumbs you dropped that marked your way forward." -- Frances May

But enough of my travel lust, time to look back on what i've been up to and back to helping you travel vicariously through me. A few weekends ago, on the 15th of June we went to Mount Ruapehu which is dab smack in the center of the North island. At 2,797 m high it's amazing and as Wikipedia has just told me it's also one of the worlds most active volcanos (Hmm, didn't know that one before). It's also close to Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movie, although we didn't really explore that area. Backing up, we left Auckland at 4:45pm. I thought it'd take us 4 hours to get down there but we didn't arrive in the town of Ohakune (prounounced Oh-ah-koonie) until more like 10:15. Yet another weekend adventure with our friends Rosie and Houghie. We stayed in an A-Frame chatlet (refer to my previous note about Kiwi's and heating). We got up Saturday morning and made our way up to Turoa (one of the 3 skifields on Ruapehu). Stunning. I think Ruapehu is different than my experiences in Colorado for a few reasons. First is that the Rockies is a range, not just one or 2 peaks. It's mountains all around you. Also everytime i've been there everything has been coated in snow, not just the mountain. We got to the top only to discover that the mountain was closed. Which was fine since it was FREAKING COLD!





We headed back down the mountain, had lunch, and did some shopping in the town.



We had a bit of a late afternoon rest for Rosie (she's currently 7 months pregnant so she's resting for 2 at the moment). We had several grabbing games of jenga to pass the time.

Jenga!


After dinner at the Powderkeg (a lovely bar/restaurant) we got ready to go to the Ohakune Mardi Gras festival which was several bands playing and had fireworks. Again freezing. I'll spare you the long drawn out details, but never have i been to a more disorganized, chaotic event. Horrible.

Smiling despite the cold and the disorganisation


We only ended up staying outside watching the music for an hour before retreating backinto the powderkeg to watch the drunks. After breakfast on Sunday we parted ways and Matt and i decided to go check out another skifield--Whakapapa.









Whakapapa is beautiful and also just a really fun name to say--refer to my previous post on spellings and the WH sound in New Zealand. A long drive home, but we enjoyed it. Taupo is a beautiful area as well and hopefully we'll check it out sometime soon.



Still to come our adventures on Waiheke for our anniversary, Matt's birthday, 4th of July and more!