OK, I am still alittle bit sore from my first hike in New Zealand. And that was on Saturday, and it's now Thursday! Yeash! It was well worth it though. I climbed Mt. Taranaki, which is a dormant volcano, 8,261 feet above sea level at the top. Because of it's shape a lot of people compare to the famous Mt. Fuji in Japan.

The weekend started with an shocking exposure to the NZ road system on Friday night. I had to drive from Auckland to New Plymouth, about 380km. I don't have a car here in NZ because I only live about 15min walk from work, so I don't need one. So, knowing nothing about driving in NZ yet, I thought I would be able to drive 380km in about 4 hours. Well, little did I know that the top speed limit is 100km/hr, and that is not even that in very many places. I think the only place with major freeways is around Auckland and possibly some of the other bigger cities (Wellington) that I have not been to yet. There are ertainly not any freeways after about 1/2 hour outside of Auckland, all the way to New Plymouth.

Also, the roads are obviously not as used as I am used to in North America or Europe. Of course with only 4 million people in the entire country, which is quite big, that's should not be very surpising. But it was, as I guess I was clueless. So, the main highway for about 3/4 of the way to New Plymouth felt like a little English country road, in the middle of nowhere. About 1/2 a dozen times the speed limit dipped down to 30 km/hr, and went to gravel!!! Crazy. This is highway #3, which looks like a major highway on the map. Oh well.

So eventually it took about 5 hours instead of 4 to get there. And this turned out not very good because the reception at the hostel I had booked closed at 8pm, and I got in about 9pm. I had picked a hostel because it was only one night and I am trying to save money for my condo. It was only $35/night too, for a private room with ensuite, so I thought I had lucked out. Except for the late arrival would have been great. So, unfortunately I had to search for accomodation after that.

Now I think normally in New Plymouth this would not be a problem, but I just happened to be there when the NZ Life Guard compentition happened to be in town. Yeash. So most places were taken, at least all the chep ones. So I ended up in a 4 star, for $145. Oh well, hopefully I will save more in the weeks to come. Now I know a lot of you guys would have been all excited right about then with all the hundrerds of life guards in town. For me, a bunch of big huge muscle boys in speedos, well... I'd rather eat glass, so I was in bed almost before I was checked in. Well, I definitely needed the rest for the next day.

So I was up at about 6am and all ready to go for the hike up the volcano. It took about an hour longer to get there than I expected, but I still got there by 9am which was alright. On the way there took a buch of pictures of the mountain from a distance from the car. There you can see exactly how far I climbed as you start basically right at the base and then climb all the way up, I only clibmed to the top of Fanthams Peak, which is a little further down from the highest point. This hike was supposed to be between 2000-2500 feet up, and take about 5-6 hours, so I thought that would be pleanty for my first hike. And it was!

It started out pretty normally, hiking on a path through dense vegetation. There was lots of moss and green and cool trees, and a path that had quite a few steps constructed into it. It seemed pretty similar to hiking in and around Vancouver, except that the trees were a different kind and a also different under-brush vegetation as well.

Then the trees and jungle seemed to give way and there was just low (around 6ft) bushes for quite a while up. Then after about 1 1/2 hours (about 1/2 the way up), almost all of the big bushes disappeared, and I came to one of the two backpacker huts on the hike. These are built so people can do 5 day hikes all the way around the middle of the mountain.

Oh and it has been uphill the entire way so far. Only about the first 15 minutes was there a few places with level ground (for like 4 or 5 steps). The rest of the way was up steps or uphill the entire way!! So, after this point there was actually a staircase built "above" the side of the mountain. I am guessing this is because of all the water rushing down when it rains would just wash away and steps that would be built into the ground without any trees, rocks, or other vegetation to anchor it down. So it's more uphill on the elevated stairway.

Then after a short ways on these stairs I get to the height on the mountain where pretty much all of the vegetation is gone. Here the path is only marked with tall ski-poles sticking out of the ground. And after not too long all solid rocks and ground and plants dissapear and it's going up straight gravel. For every step I took I seemed to slide back down 1/2 a step! Very frustrating. Being very tired as well at this point I almost considered giving up, but I knew I would never forgive myself, so I kept at it. For the next hour I played the game of trying to spot the best way up with the least loose gravel. Very very difficult. This was not a fun part of the hike!

About half way though the gravel area, the fog/mist started to roll into the mountain. It had been completely clear blue skies when I started. The fog came in so quickly it was really cool to watch because you could actually see it moving at very fast speed. I filmed it, but not sure when I will get that on my site. It was very cool though. I luckily happened to be at a spot too were the fog amost stopped. So sometimes I was in it and sometimes I could see out over it. It was very very cool, I felt like I was in an airplane at points, looking out over the clouds. Yet I was standing on the side of a mountain. It was way cool.

So any ways, after an hour of hell, I eventually got to a spot where there was a lot more solid rock, and the going got much easier. Then 1/2 an hour after that I was at the top. It was supposed to take about 3 1/2 hours to get up and I did it in 3, so I was quite pleased with that. Although I still think I am way out of shape and hopefully I will get in better condition as I get out more. Again it was a simiar view from the top. There were clouds everywhere around the base of the mountain and clear blue skies where I was. It was very weird as I am only used to seeing this view from an airplane, many many times, but never from the ground. In a few places you could see through a break in the clouds and see the ocean or parts of the ground and that was pretty cool too.

There was a kiwi couple at the top, so I got some information from them about other hikes. Then, after spending about 1/2 hour at the top, I headed back down. And this time the gravel worked to my advantage. Every step was a step and half because you could slide with the gravel. It was very very hard on the feet though because you had to slam them down with each step into the loose rocks or else you would loose your balance and fall. But all in all much more fun than going up! Then after a brief panic of thinking that I had lost my way from the ski-poles because of the fog, which was not there when I came up, and thus manageed to completely fool my sense of direction, and about an hour and a half later I was at the bottom.

All in all a very enjoyable Saturday afternoon. Then it was about a 5 hour drive back to Auckland, which was actually very VERY welcome at this point because I was off of my feet!! :) And then when I got into Auckland, about 7-8pm, I had to do grocery shopping because I had a car and wanted to take advantage of it. Then 9-10pm you could imagine how very exhausted I would be at this point. Well, can you guess what I did then? Well, if you are thinking old Casey, your right, I went out clubbing! It actually felt good to stretch my legs for a while. However, part way through the night I found myself looking for places to sit :)

As for the night out in Auckland, well there is not much to say. It's no europe, that's for sure. There was basically only one club/bar with any amount of people. It was alright, pretty busy, but really nothing all that interesting happened. I think maybe I will need to try again when I am a little more rested. Or I might just wait until I have visitors as there are so many other things to do here in NZ in the meantime... we'll see.

This weekend is now going to be a much more relaxed one. Only going to take a day trip with Trevor and Denise to Rangitoto island. It is only a 20 minute ferry ride out in the middle of the main bay in Auckland. Then the rest of the weekend will be resting for the week after that which should be Tongiriro Crossing... very excited about that one! :)