SYD - TAS - NZ 2023

Upfront: Apologies to everyone who has no clue about Lord of the Rings - you may not understand some of the below…
And to everyone - sorry for the long post.

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A bit of an odd day today.

First of all - I could sleep in… which didn‘t go that well. So, I started with a vast breakfast at the cute ‚The fat kiwi‘-cafe, in a little village that had a lot of big birds…

After that, I threw myself into a wetsuit and some glowworm caves. Waitomo is quite famous for it’s cafes and I booked a tour with tubing - yes, we all got a swim tube, a wetsuit, stylish rubber boots, a helmet and a light - and off we went (sorry, no pics). We spent quite some time in the cave (and the cold water) - but it was really amazing. And the glowworms are almost surreal.
Also… small world… on of the other participants was an ex-Amazonian (a shoes vendor manager - and yes, Amazonians know exactly what this means 😉)

From there, it was a two hours drive to my next stop… lost of construction sites on the road - and I tried to stop three times for a coffee - without any success (two closed, and the other one did not look inviting at all). So, no coffee… 😕

So, I went straight to my next accommodation, also to sort out my hiking trip tomorrow and assuming I could get coffee somewhere here (spoiler alert: nope).
I arrived, walked through the door with ‚Entrance‘ and there was no reception or anything. There was some communal space, bathrooms, stairs to the rooms… some doors malre ‚private‘ and a (former?) breakfast counter… even my ‚hallo?!?‘ didn‘t bring me any further…

Soo… after a couple of minutes I decided to head out again - there were two more places close by I wanted to see - and get back later. When walking back to my car, I looked left.. and there was a big sign: ‚office‘. And of course… someone was there to check me in 😂

Also booked my shuttle for my hike tomorrow - the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing - allegedly the best one-day hike in NZ. I had a short moment of regret when I was told that today about 300 people went up that hike (if EVERYONE is doing it, why should I do it?) - but I had already signed up for it, so I just need to go with the flow.
And - MAYBE - I am lucky enough and I see more than just clouds and rain tomorrow.
On a sidenote - this place is tiny. It seems as if the whole village is involved in these hikes (and skiing in winter) and that‘s it. There is really nothing else but surreal nature to see.

And what exactly I s there to see?!? Yeah, I’m getting deep into Lord of the Rings land now. It‘s passing a volcano and allegedly quite mystical. But I just need to look out of the window here - this feels a bit like a different world… scenes in Mordor where filmed where I will hike tomorrow…

I spent the late afternoon with a short hike to Taranaki Falls with ‚the‘ mountain in the background - and did unfortunately not make it all the way to ‚Gollum‘s pool‘, another waterfall, because it was too late already and another 1hr drive one-way. And I was starving (you may remember - no coffee in the afternoon!).

Dinner was another adventure today. My host told me that there are 3 (4) options - a food truck, a restaurant in a motel and the ‚Schnapps Bar‘ (and self-cooking). It turned out - the food truck was closed today. The hotel served only hotel guests today. The supermarket closed at 7pm (it was 7:05) - so the ‚Schnapps Bar‘ it was. For me and for almost everyone else in this little village today.
I opted for a vegetarian curry on a lentil base. Well… the lentils were chickpeas and the rice was edible at its best. Maybe they were thinking about rice-schnapps?!?

I have a big lunch bag for tomorrow - so hopefully I will make it up this mountain nevertheless 😉

Other callouts:

Report of a loss (the first I‘m aware off at least): I must have lost my beloved (!!) purple merino buff. That was a good travel and hill g friend for years. I remember I still had it when I waited for the ferry. But after that?!? No idea. And yea, I looked in all bags… 😟

I‘m also a god employee - I don‘t know how many people I’ve told that they can shop on the AU, UK and US Amazon stores (yes, it’s more in fact - but they seem most relevant) and get things shipped to NZ. Your welcome, dear colleagues. 😉

Also - did I mention that I’m running out of time?Okumaya devam et