Speak into my good ear?

Yikes. Who can beleive that it has been nearing three weeks since my last update? Not me. I'd say that I'm going to try and keep things short, and I will, but let's be real here. No one wants it to be short!
After bungy jumping in Taupo, everything else just seemed like I was too close to things and really needed to find rubber bands. Just kidding. Taupo was a cool city, but really just another big city. We got to know some cool guys from our backpacker (hostel), who may be joining up with us a little later on in our travels. We left Taupo headed for the Lake Waikaremoana track, which is a 46km hike around the lake on the eastern side of the North Island, and we were told is excruciatingly beautiful. So why not?!
We hitched a ride out of Taupo, catching a 27 year old Austrian guy named Thomas who had a car, but no plans, and lots of time... so we invited him along! He drove us all the way there, on winding gravel roads (is your stomach turning upside-down, by chance, because I was GREEN!) we stayed at a motor camp, and the next morning hopped on the trail. Our first day was planned to be our longest, as we started from a point 9 hours from our campsite, and also our hardest. Little did we know! To make a long story short, it was a difficult day, with both adam and I carrying more weight than Thomas (it was his first time on an overnight hiking trip, how could I let him carry a lot of weight!?), even though his legs were a solid 20cm longer than mine, and I swear he's part mountain goat. The weather was absolutely gorgeous though, and we walked litterally up the ridge of Panekiri bluff, then back down and around the other side to our campsite. It was quite a day of feeling the burn, loving the burn, and convincing myself that by singing every song I could think of I would surely get through the day. And I did! Adam had huge painful bruises from the rubbing of his backpack, Thomas seemed not to notice the difficulty of our climb, but at the end of the day we were all enjoying our stink, smiling over soup, and squished in the tent together. There is nothing I love more than being smashed in between two stinky men who don't snore all night, but throw elbows nearing my face (and one making contact, thank you adam) and then waking up to pancakes!
Day two was not nearly as tough, although it rained almost all day. It isn't uncommmon for it to rain here, which doesn't usually stop Adam and I from adventuring, though on the trail is got all of my things wet. Wet = bad. Boo. About 7 hours later we made it to camp, and because our things were wet and the rain didn't seem to be slowing we opted to (illegally!) sleep inside the kitchen of the hut, near the fire, in hopes of drying things out and not to get sick! Day three was a short day, about 4 hours of hiking until our water taxi pickup spot, which was before the end of the trail. We made it there earlier than the water taxi, so we dropped our bags and finished the trail without packs (waahoo! much easier walking!) which was great, considering we wouldn't have been able to if we didn't have a long and hard first day. On our way out, the water taxi driver told us we were lucky to be off the trail, because the forecast said snow! (it's supposed to be the start of summer here REAL soon!) The trail was absolutely breathtaking, with views from Panekiri bluff going out to where the eye can't make out the difference between the land and the sky, and the progression from water, to trees, to rock, to sand, to fields was unreal. It's so hard for me to understand how gorgeous everything is here, and even though I stop on the trail and yell out "WOW! this is beautiful!!" (yes, this really happens) is still seems like I can't quite grasp the fact that these sights are made from the earth, and definitely worth the hours of painstaking uphill hikes.
After the trail, we needed some TLC. So we spent quite some time in the car, (yikes-palooza), parted ways with Thomas (sad...) then headed to Wellington, the capital city! We were able to stay with a friend, Carmel Levy, who we met in our travels to Israel and who was a wonderful host and friend to us. Without her, Wellington would just have been another city, in another backpacker, but she was nice enough to show us around and show us a great time! We went to a great show by a band called Rhombus, danced the night away and finally hit the sleeping bag nearing 4am. Woo! The city was cool, more specifically the Botanical Gardens where we had the chance to climb up a big tree, sit on top of the branches, sun ourselves and look out over the city. When we get a chance to load pictures, it will be much easier to understand. At any rate though, it was relaxing sitting high above everyone else with that rich-Vitamin D golden sun kissing our faces.
Next we ran (literally) to catch the ferry to the South Island, which was the biggest boat I've ever been on! It was way too cool! I'm sure that it's not much bigger than any cruise boats, but they had an arcade, a movie theater, and all kinds of stuff. Weird!
We got off in Picton, tried hitching out of there to Nelson, but were distracted by $15 beds, so we stayed. It ended up being two nights at the backpacker, enough time for us to gather and ration food, and head out on a kayaking/camping trip! I've never done any kayak camping, so the fact that we could bring anything we wanted and not have to worry about weight was wonderful. We even had beer! Our first two days of paddling were b-e-a-utiful, without a cloud in the sky and us having a great time paddling aorund the Marlborough Sounds, which are known for the great paddling, as well as are home to 600 of the world's rarest marine birds! We paddled past seals, lots of birds, plenty of rocks and lots of blue sky. We stayed at a campsite on an island on our last night, just around the corner from open ocean, sharing the site with two outdoor educators (wahoo! it was sweet talking to them and knowing there IS a career for me that I know I can do well in!). The next morning (our last day) the ocean was quite rough, but the two gentlemen offered to paddle with us until we got to calmer water, so Adam and I jumped at the chance. Without them I don't think we would have left the island, and had we ventured out into the water could have gotten ourselves into quite a connundrum. In our safety breifing from the kayaking company, they said at 15 knots white caps appear on the waves, at 20 knots you should get off the water, and our two outdoor educator guides said Adam and I were battling with 30 knot waves! It took us about an hour of hard out paddling, he and I in a double kayak having quite a fight with the waves, and we made it only about 1/4 of the way of our journey for the day, but we were past the hardest part. There were points when I thought my muscles would give out from exhaustion, or my fingers would break off from the cold, or I might puke from the amount of salt water I was drinking. If it weren't for the adrenaline running thick in my blood, I was sure all three of those might happen, so Adam ruddered hard left, both he and I paddled hard on the right side, the boat went airborne, into the waves, and at points the waves were so big the front of the boat hadn't even come out of the wave before Adam (who was sitting in back) entered the wave. Wow. Talk about an adventure! We made it out safe, sound, cold, wet, tired, and hungry, but feeling unstoppable!
After refueling with some dry clothes, we tried our chances at hitching to Nelson to no avail, and after a long ridiculous serious of rides to different places and meeting different people, closed or full backpackers, we ended up sleeping on someone's pull out beds. Mmmm... a bed!


Okay, this is where I'm going to stop for now. I've been typing away at this computer for long enough, considering I've been up using the free internet since 6.30am, after Adam who woke me up after he spent two hours with his fingers to the keyboard. I'll write again when we get more time, but now I must wake up Adam and pack up our bags before it is time to check out. I've been loving traveling around, living with everything I own on my back, carrying my things around and being a complete nomad.
Hope all is well with everyone at home.


"Not all those who wander are lost." -J.R.R. Tolkien