Mount DOOM...

The beginning of the hike...

The hike of death. Doom is such a fitting name for this day. Okay it was totally cool at the same time but oh my gosh the hardest hike I've been on to date. Wow. The hike is actually called the Tongariro Crossing and is a 17 kilometer hike which is about 12 miles total. It only took the small amount of 10 hours to complete it. Mount Doom is actually just a mountain that quite close to the beginning of the hike. And it's real name is Mount Ngauruhoe .So the day started with us waking up at about 5:30 am and getting to the start of the hike at around 6:30 am. The beginning of the hike is super easy and nice and flat and your walking with mountains on either side of you and it's green but more brown and bush like. So then we start going up a little bit steeper of a hill and you start getting lava rock around you and then bam! your at Mount Doom. The deal with the mountain was that if you wanted to you could summit it, climb to the top, and then come back down. Sounds easy no? Ha. Not. First the summit is about 45 degrees all the way up on lava rock and this super fine sand that you take one step forward and slide about 3 seps back. Let's just say the part in Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Sam are trying to climb up the mountain and they have such looks of anguish on their face? Yeah that part required no acting on their part. However the mountain is covered in lava rock which is pretty cool. I also took brought my sister's "one ring" from Lord of the Rings on this adventure with me and had some fun taking pictures on Mount Doom with the ring. It made hiking the Mountain of DEATH totally worth it.

Resist the power of the RING!!

So after we hike Mount Doom we still had about 3/4's of the hike left to finish. We went from the lava rock of Mount Doom to another really mountain that you could see where the lava had dried up. It has these awesome folds of lava rock in the mountain.

Then you go down a big empty crater and then up another mountain. (Ouch) and then you come to these very neat pools of sulfur water. They are crystal clear and blue. Very beautiful.

Then we walked some more on more dry barren lava type landscape. Towards the end of the hike the scenery started to change into dry fields of grass which was entirely different from what we'd seen earlier in the day.

Then the hike ends and you end up in literally this rain forest for the last hour of the hike. It was incredible to go from lava rock and dry to this lush green forest.

So that was Mount Doom.

Hamilton...

Mostly what we did here was stop at the Hamilton Temple. It's the only temple in New Zealand and it's beautiful. It's set in the middle of nowhere with farm land all around it and the temple is just sitting on a hill. It's stunning to see the white set against such vivid green.

So we spent time doing baptisms for the dead on Saturday night and then we went to church on Sunday. We went to a Young Single Adult ward and after Church we were able to spend some time mingling with the youth there. We talked to a couple of girls who were very funny and told us that the biggest thing about the dialogue in New Zealand is that they like to speak in short words. They use the minimal amount possible. It's very funny.

Then on Sunday night the best thing ever happened! Well not really but I watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. It was so so cool to watch Lord of the Rings in New Zealand because you just watch the scenery go by in the movies and it looks so familiar because I've seen it now!

Tauranga...

This was a small city that we stopped in called Tauranga. We went on our first hike in New Zealand! It was called Mount Maunganui and was right by the ocean. As you're hiking you just overlook the ocean the whole time. It was so gorgeous. The trees here are very interesting too because you have typical forest trees that I'm used to seeing but also ferns, and rain forest type forestry all in the same place. It's amazing how diverse the land is here.

(The view from the hike)

Then we got to go to the beach for the first time! The water was not too cold and it was so gorgeous. There were actually jelly fish in the water so I didn't want to spend a ton of time. I did not want to get stung by one of those bad boys. I got another sunburn too. The sun here is killer and you can't be outside for more than an hour without getting burned if you don't have sunscreen on.

Mai Tai....

The second night we were in Roturua we went to a Marae. This is a traditional Maori celebration of sorts that they put on for visitors. You go and are able to hear about that particular Maori tribes history and they demonstrate Maori traditions for you. This tribe's name was Mitai. We saw the men come down the river in a war canoe called a Waka Tua. They sang traditional songs and were doing almost like military gun drills with their oars. It was very neat. We then got to go sit and watch various traditional dances being done by both the women and the men. The men did the Haaka, which is the Maori war dance that was done to give strength and intimidate their opponents in battle. It is a very impressive dance that I've seen done before but nothing compares to watching it in New Zealand by Maori's. It was incredible. The also talked about their face tatoo's which they had plenty of. I didn't know this but each tribe has different face tatoos that represent different things. The Mitai tribes tatoos were all birds.
So after that we got to go and eat!!! Finally. Just to preface this we got to the Marae, at about 5:45 and we were all starving. And we get there thinking oh we get to eat first. But no. They do the whole show before you are allowed to eat so we didn't get food till about 9:00 that night. I happen to think it's just so that they can make you super hungry because then they give you tons of food and just stuff you with it. The food was delicious. Another part of a Marae is to eat a traditional Maori meal which is cooked on hot coals and called a Hangi. They cook lamb, chicken, sweet potatoes, and potatoes. There were also lot's of yummy salad and desserts for us to eat. It was delicious. Traditional War Canoe - Waka Tua

It may look like a lot of food but don't judge until
you've thought you were going to eat at 6 but were
starved until 9. You'd eat a lot too.

Roturua...

BEST CITY EVER!!!!! So we took a short drive from Auckland and ended up in this small town called Roturua. That day we just spent some time in the lake by us and we were the only ones there. We were all so thrilled to have sun and water that could be gone in you couldn't keep us out of it. Course we later found out that the lake is considered to be polluted so that's why no one else was in it, but oh well. After swimming, I went kayaking with a couple of my friends which was super fun. Then we set up our tents for the first time of what would be a very very long two weeks of sleeping on the ground. Ann and I were tent buddies and our dear tent is tiny. It wasn't even as large as a full size bed, but we made it work.
The next day is when the real fun began. Our director gave us each some money and we got to choose what fun crazy adventure we wanted to have. I decided to go zorbing. Best. Decision. Ever. Basically you are inside a giant human hamster ball and you can either have it dry or wet. I went with the wet option of course which is called hydro-zorbing. Ann and I went down together and it was the most fun 40 seconds of my life. You start standing up and attempt to run but you end up slipping pretty much right away and start rolling all over the place and ending up upside down and all turned around. And your wet too! It's literally the most exhilarating 40 seconds anyone could ever want.

But the fun didn't end there! Then we got to go luging. Basically what you sit on a sled like contraption and go down a hill. It's just like the Alpine slide if anyone's done that but you get quite a lot of speed and their were 3 different track options: easy, int., and adv. So that was very exciting. Not as great as Zorbing but nothing compares to that.

The Adventure Begins...

Okay you all who are reading this. There are going to be a ton of posts at the beginning because we have crammed the past 2 weeks full of stuff and I'm going to write about most of it but I don't want it to be in one long epic post. So enjoy!
So we hopped on the plane on January 12th at 1:00 in the afternoon. We arrived in New Zealand at Auckland on January 14th at 5:00 am. It's really interesting because we actually just lose a whole day when we flew here. The 13th of January didn't even exist for me! So we got to the airport and we all gathered up all our luggage and go through customs and all that fun stuff and then we were in New Zealand. We rented vans for the first 2 weeks we were here and they were big 12 seater vans that conveniently ended up being red, white, and blue. We were patriotic even in New Zealand. So all excited and pumped up to get to our first city we stared to drive. It was absuloutely stunning. All of us pretty much had our faces crammed out the window with our jaws dropped in awe and sticking our hands out the windows time after time and snapping pictures from the car. The North Island starts out super green and it has these gorgeous gentle rolling hills. I've never seen a place more beautiful.