I suppose we can take you back after all

Ok ok , nature, i suppose you can have your job back, those last two days were fabulous...no! that does not mean you can have raise!

I'm in Taupo at the moment, having spent the last two days in the mountains. The weather cleared up , so we were able to complete the tongariro crossing. However, due to time constraints, we were unable to complete the full northern curcuit. So we walked over the crossing one day, and back the next. The crossing is heralded to be New Zealand's best day hike. I can understand why. I had to start making up words to describe how beautiful it was. It certainly wasn't an easy walk, especially with the gear we had to carry to spend two nights. WE ascended a pass and then walked across a large volcanic crater. There was a mist blowing through the crater, which made it look otherworldly. Seriously, so cool. I've got these great pictures of Bretton and Aleah walking away from me through the mist. I'll try to post it in a few days, so stay tuned :)
From the crater, we could look straight up at Mt. Ngauruhoe, which was used as mount doom in LOTR..I know I know I said that Taranaki was mt. doom, but it turns out that I am FULL OF LIES. Where were we, hobbits, orcs, mt doom, look alikes...right! looks alikes... one of two things have happened...either everyone I know has come to new zealand and are ignoring me out of spite, or i was missing home, because I thought I saw about 4 people that I knew from home...it was a little freaky.

Anyway... we ascended a bit higher out of the crater to the rim of the aptly neamed "red crater" yup...it was very red... it was also COMPLETELY GORGEOUS. I mean supergorgtasterific. Beyond description. I attempted in vain to capture it in photo, but i couldn't do it justice. I hang my head in shame :(
Of course getting down the other side of Red Crater was bit interesting. It was a bit like a sand dune, which woudl have been no problem with proper boots and a day pack, but I had runners, offering no ankle support, and a large pack throwing off my balance. I managed to descend unscathed, but it took awhile.

From there, we walked a short was to the (also well named) emerald lakes. Which are really more like Emerald sulphery-puddles. from there, we ascended, up to the larger (what is it with obvious names) Blue Lake. Seriously... have some creativity here. The walk from there to our hut was uninteresting. Our hut was basic, but nice. We walked back the same way the next day. It was nice to see the view from the opposite direction, although we had to fight the throngs of Day hikers a bit. We were told about a short cut, so we didn't have to walk back up the red crater sand hill of death. It was nice to avoid that little bit of misery. We got to the top of Tongariro today. We hit a bit of snow, whcih was fun on the way back. We didn't have any issues (as professional boot skiers) but it was quite funny to watch some of the day hikers struggle to get down. The walk back wasn't too bad, but i was still quite tired by the time we got to our hut for teh night. The hut warden was the strangest nerdy little man, who seemed a bit antisocial and awkward... I felt sort of bad for him, almost like we were intruding on his space by staying there.

This morning, our shuttle bus picked us up from the trail end at 8 am, which meant an early morning as we still had a short walk to get there. We bummed around the hostel for bit, then bummed around a cafe until our bus picked us up. we had to stop over in Tarangi on our way through to Taupo. Who did we see there...Olli!! Olli, our Finnish buddy from Rotorua. we hung out with him for a couple hours while we waited for our bus. It's so cool how we keep bumping into people that we've met before.

well that's pretty much it, in other news, I got to go climbing and sort of wrecked myslef right before our hike, but i've basically healed by now, my wisdom tooth is coming in, which could be ...interesting... and i want new music but can't afford it. I've also spent way more money than i've thought and need to seriously consider getting a job soon. I'll be travelling alone in about 4 days, which will be weird. Not bad weird, but interesting nontheless.

Lov you all
Sydney :)