Climbing Mountains

Hi folks, greetings from Wellington. No photos today but hope to post a pile soon, in the mean time here's an update of our antics in the far distant lands of New Zealand North Island.

We left Hastings and labour intensive Hawkes Bay bound for greener pastures about 10 days ago. I'm no stranger to a bit of hard work but busting our health few a few measley cents really wasn't much of an experience, our last job (did I say previously?) was working in a fruit tree nursery pruning little peach saplings. Did you know that nectarines aren't a natural fruit? They're designed by us and are grown on peach trees, don't ask me how, it's got something to do with grafting buds onto sapling trees. Anyway, there's an interesting piece of information, I'm probably the last to have discovered it! So, pruning saplings, don't do it, it sucks. I'm going to use the tall excuse, I think the closer you are to the ground the easier it is. After two days crouching over the trees we resorted to sitting in the dirt and shuffling between the plants on our backsides. There's no shade in the nursery, the week before 5 employees were taken to hospital with heat stroke, it is fondly refered to as the desert. You'll be glad to hear I've no more moaning for a few weeks, I'll save that for when we get our next character building job.

After leaving Hastings we drove across country via, Taupo, National Park (past the stunning Mount Doom (for all those LOTR geeks) and snowy Mount Ruapehu volcano), along the Forgotten World Highway, a deliciously winding route through some stunning hillscapes, leafy gorges and a narrow tunnel (Hobbit hole) with a rewarding view of the majestic Mount Taranaki (Egmont) on the West Coast, Stratford and our final destination, New Plymouth. Last week we climbed Taranaki, much to the dismay of our knees, a dormant classic cone shaped volcano looming above the flat plains of the Taranaki district. There's apparently an old saying in Taranaki 'If you can see the mountain it's going to rain and if you can't see the mountain then it's already raining'. The Maori legends place Mount Taranaki in a volcanic love story and tell of the exiled mountain hiding behind a cloud of tears. Ok, I'm sure you get it, the mountain is most commonly wet, but not for us, our hard work scrambling up the last thousand or so meters of scree and rock afforded us with stunning views as far to the east as the peaks of Ruapehu and Tongariro and out west to sea. I can't begin to describe how exhilerating a climb it was and if it wan't for the dicey scree running descent it would be near on perfect.

We are now in Wellington, enjoying our last few days on the North Island, tomorrow we catch the ferry to Picton and begin the next leg of our journey on the South Island. It's the Fringe festival in Wellington so we've been kept busy. We've been staying with a lovely lady we met when walking in the Tongariro Park, she kindly gave us free reign of her home when she went away this weekend. So we've seen some culture, some lovely views and, on the advice of a few people, both at home and here, we've braved a rugby match, the 2007 Super 14's season has just commenced and last weekend we saw the first match, Hurricanes (Wellington) vs Blues (Auckland). As far as the rules go we are no wiser, the atmosphere was great though and watching poor unsuspecting couples picked out from the crowd to kiss on the main viewing screen made up for the lack of action on the pitch, I mean, at least in football the only stops and starts are orchestrated by players writhing in agony on the pitch with the suspected sprained ankle injuries sustained during suspect tackles (which almost always miraculously heal), in rugby you have to concentrate so hard to catch the action that you inevitably miss it. Oh, and whats with the scantily clad cheer leaders? Does anyone actually watch the rugby? All said, it wasn't that bad!

Thats us folks. Cross fingers for a calm crossing tomorrow. I'll be in touch soon with more photos.