Blog 21

Another week passed by really quickly. I said goodbye to my Coromandel – friends on Tuesday and drove, after passing by Mt Manganui, all the way to Taupo. The plan was to do a bungee jump in Taupo the next morning and the Tongariro Crossing in the Tongariro NP after that. I turned of for an outlook, just before Taupo, and after a couple of minutes a van with 2 guys in it arrived: Shawn (from Hawaii) and Rob (from England) were travelling as well and also planning on doing the Tongariro crossing the next day. Rob lived in Taupo for a couple of years and he knew a good place to stay the night.
That evening there was hypes of music going on: Shawn is a musician: plays the guitar and sings his own songs, and he’s really good. It was really cool to sing and play together.
The next morning we headed for Tongariro NP. I left my car in a posh neighborhood, since leaving the car at the NP isn’t really safe: they are broken into often.
I was full of energy when we started out climbing the mountain, not knowing that it was going to be quite exhausting. After 3 hours going uphill, we arrived at a hut, where you could stay the night if you wanted (to pay 30 dollars). We left our sleeping bags and the guitar in the hut, where we had a bit of a music session before we went to explore the mountain even more. 2 hours later, we were at the top of the Red Crater (1886 meter, see pics), and I have to say: it was really beautiful.
When we arrived back at the hut, we decided not to sleep there: sleeping in the car is free.. so we went back down around sunset and altogether we did 8 hrs of walking that day…. Pfff… funny thing is that I was full of energy at the end/after the walk. It felt like a sort of pilgrimage. Shawn and Rob both belief in God and JC and we had a lot of interesting talks about life and love. They both had some amazing story’s to tell while I’m just trying to work out for myself what I really really want in life/love.
Anyway, the next morning we picked up my car, and as I headed for Gisborne, Shawn called me to ask if I could pick him up to join me on a surf trip, as I did. The next morning (Friday) we arrived in Gisborne and the waves were not really good… but there was free internet in the library :-). As we tried to find a place to sleep, I couldn’t resist a surf at Makori Centres. After that we found a nice place to stay and I did my yoga, while Shawn played the guitar. Saturday we went to the movies to see slamdog millionaire. The movie was great: go and see it!!! After that we both had a surf and in the evening we stayed at the same spot and I did some yoga again. On Sunday morning I found a warning notice on the car.. we were not allowed to camp at that spot… oeps… That morning I surfed Pines and it was really nice: caught a couple of waves.. After Shawn had a go as well, we had a rest and went to town to check if we could see another movie, but it already started and the library was closed on Sunday.. boring!! In the end we did some shopping and we had another surf at Wanui’s ‘schools’, which was actually really nice. After the surf I went for a 45 min run on the beach (just had too much energy). As we were trying to figure out where to stay that night, a man, Peter, offered Shawn to park on his driveway, which was superb. No worries about a fine :-)
Monday morning we both had a surf at Pines, but the waves were getting smaller. We went to see the movie Australia (ehmm about that movie.. well… the beginning is really bad and fake and all, but later on it gets better.. well, it’s a must see anyway, but there will be no awards for ‘best actor/ actress) at 3pm and decided to go for a drive after that. Shawn purchased a bus ticket from Napier to Taupo the next day to meet Rob again. I was going to drop him of in Napier. Halfway to Napier, we parked the car and had a sleep. The next morning we went for a bath in the river (so nice to feel clean and not salty) and I dropped Shawn in Napier.
I drove all the was to Wellington, where I am now… Probably sleep in a hostel tomorrow after a surf here near the airport. Unluckily the beach here is not really a beach and it is windy… hypes of wind… I did find a spot with an amazing view to stay the night (see pic’s). Since it was quite cold the last week, I bought an extra sleeping bag today for 5 dollars (2 euro’s) at the salvation army, so I’m looking forward to curl up in that and have a warm night… g’night.
It’s Wednesday now… In a hostel.. 13 dollars to sleep in my car, but be able to use the hot shower and the grand piano!!!! Lucky again… Going to check whether there’s some theatre going on in Wellington tonight. Just did my laundry.. at least everything smells nice again… stains are still there though… :-)