Morrrdorrrr

Autumn's finally here.

And we chose its coming to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.

Me: "This will be great! Because it won't be too hot. I hate walking when it's too hot."

Tim: "Yeah. It'll probably be the perfect temperature."

Well. It definitely wasn't too hot. 

This is the landscape of Mordor.

Peter Jackson used Ruapehu (ski tastic wonderland) and Ngauruhoe (try pronouncing that with a mouthful of curry) for Mount Doom.

It was certainly a very bleak and chilly place.

Alpine, in fact.

I suppose the clue was in the name. 

The full track was, disappointingly, still closed due to a tiny volcanic eruption back in November. The track was full of exciting reminders of that time, though, disappointingly again, we saw no flying rocks, volcanic or otherwise.

The really sad effect of all of this closing was that we had to climb a little over the halfway mark - over the top of the crossing and then down again - and then BACK UP. There is nothing as sad as retracing your steps back up a mountain, unless it's descending a mountain knowing that for every step you go down you're going to have to reclimb, while accumulating tons of ashy grit in your boots (see fig. 1, above.)

It was steep as.

But it did not warm us up.

Even the warm lakes couldn't warm us up, though they did make us smell like farts.

Tim maintains it was the lakes. 

Still, it was worth it. A spectacular piece of NZ, a very unwelcoming and alien and beautiful world. 

I mean, look at that. 

We returned home to a very well earned meal of mainly chips (as part of our GrabOne deal, we were staying at a tiny place which provided all of our nutrition for two days. It seemed to only serve chips, and occasionally sausages and beans. It wasn't as nice as you might think. The whole kitchen was run by French people, which seemed surprising. But perhaps that's what they think non-French people eat? Bizarre.) and a very well earned snooze, for we were absolutely cream crackered by the whole thing, having spent a foolish amount of time walking. 6 hours! 6 hours is not an acceptable amount of time to be climbing for. 

Maja and Kirsty, I thought of you and Miss Endorphins 2007 and, well. I've clearly grown old.

So after all that strenuous exertion, we thought the best thing to do the next day would be to go for a 4 hour kayak down the Wanganui.

 That way!

I was still clearly freezing at this point, even though it was, just as clearly, a lovely day. We passed a group of school children who were flinging themselves into the river with great gusto. 

Oh, NZ. You're so wholesome in a way that I thought only existed in Enid Blyton.

That 4 hour paddle nearly destroyed us.

The Wanganui is a grade 2 river - easy enough for beginners like us, and plenty of gentle white water which we gently drifted down with moments of mild panic. Half way along, there was a lavender farm which had a cafe. Having forgotten to bring anything with us, we sadly padded up the slope, used their toilets, gently refused their offers of coffee ("Well, yes, I'd like some coffee. I mean, if you don't mind us not paying...") and tried to dry out slightly (rapids do get you quite wet, it turns out), we ran out of excuses to stay, and had to get back on the road (river) again.

I was tired. 

I'm too old for this. 

But at least I'm not wearing a wetsuit, I thought to myself. I can't deal with getting inside another wetsuit, just not for the next two weeks or so. It occurred to me that it seemed fitting that Bret used getting into a wetsuit as an example of his hurt feelings. Clearly, getting into wetsuits is something that is a NZ routine. It's something everyone can relate to. Then I realised that I'd pondered this before, and that I now spend too much of my time not only being in wetsuits, but also thinking about wetsuits. Which is a sad, rubbery state of affairs. 

Yes, I try and correlate every aspect of my New Zealand experience to Flight of the Conchords. What of it? 

The next day, we warmed up in New Plymouth, which had its very own wind wand, and also the best park known to man, with an awesome cricket ground, a fountain you could turn on and off, and a petting zoo with kune kunes in it!

Their name means fat and round in Maori and they were wonderful.
I think I'm well on the way to convincing Tim to get a pig (two.)

We ate a very large amount of food not involving chips and did almost no exercise and were very warm.
It was bliss.

I didn't quite escape wearing a wetsuit though (I note that I have not had a single holiday in New Zealand so far without wearing a wetsuit. This is preoccupying me. When did I become this person?)

Our perfect holiday was ended, disappointingly, with a slightly untoward incident. Our car bonnet worked loose while we were driving at 90kmph and swung upwards, smashing our windscreen in. We were, to say the least, surprised, and also slightly disapppointed, as we had just bought a car rack. And now we have no car. 

On the other hand, we were not very disappointed, as we had no injuries and everything could have gone a lot worse, so on balance, we counted ourselves pretty lucky.

Also, we got a tow from Bulls, the most puntastic town in New Zealand.

Sitting in the tow truck was very exciting.

But not as exciting as...

Rescued by a pun. It could only happen to a Robson.