Rotorua. Danielle and I randomly ran into a friend in my study abroad while hiking the Tongariro crossing. His car had broken down on the north island and he needed a ride to the airport the following Monday. We were both going to Rotorua for the night and he wanted to attend the Maori cultural dinner. Although we were skeptical and felt the event was a tourist trap, we decided to attend. On the bus ride there Danielle, without me knowing what she was doing, nominated me as a "Chief." This required me to lead the entire bus in several songs, but more importantly when we got to the dinner it started with a ceremonial peace offering where warrior Maori came out dancing around with weapons, sticking their tongues out and yelling chants. This is not really my thing, but as fate would have it I was selected by the warrior to accept the "peace offering" while about 200 other tourist stood around watching this spectacle. The facilitator told me to "walk very slowly and carefully so as not to show a sign of disrespect to the Maori tribe." On the verge of breaking out into laughter I picked up to the peace offering. In the end, the warrior shoved his spear close to my face and then walked away, which meant we could all enter the tribal grounds - HURRAY (I've never felt like such a tourist, but Danielle seemed to get a good laugh out of it)!!

Lake Taupo - Easter weekend. Keeping with tradition, we woke up Easter morning to two chocolate Easter bunnies with their ears bitten off. For as long as I can remember my dad (aka Easter bunny) would open each chocolate Easter bunny box the night before Easter and take a bite off the ears of the bunnies before replacing the bunnies back into the Easter baskets.

Danielle and I took a trip up to New Zealand's north island. While the south island is better known for the outdoor trips, the north island has a hike rated the best 1 day hike in New Zealand and rated by some travel magazines as a top ten 1 day hike in the world - The Tongariro hike! We decided to make the 8+ hour hike over some of the most diverse and difficult terrain I have ever hiked (we even got to hike across an active volcano peak where you could scratch the groud and feel hot steam coming through the dirt). The hike is usually not too bad in the summer; however, a snow storm put a ton of ice on the ground for our hike. I am not exaggerating when I say that this was the most nervous I have ever been! Parts of the hike were completely iced over and the trail did not have any proper footing. During the winter this trail requires a professional guide and I'm pretty sure they were not expecting a snow storm this early in the year because we were not equipped for this hike. Danielle and I decided to make a side track to complete the Tongariro Summit. Our camera died after this summit. We completed the 19 kilometer track in 7 hours with a run through a fern forest to catch the 3 pm bus back to Lake Taupo where we stayed for the weekend.

A few more Abel Tasman pics

Swimming at one of the bays we pulled in to kayaking

Overlooking the bay where we dropped off our kayaks

Sunrise the 4th morning - we camped in a secluded site right off the beach!!

Low tide crossing -- during high tide this area floods with water over your head.

The slideslow below includes pictures of our Abel Tasman National Park trip. Abel Tasman is located in the northern most point of New Zealand's south island. We covered the Coastal track over 4 days and 3 nights. We took 2 person sea kayaks the first 2 days paddling around small islands off the coast and saw tons of seals and bird life. The 2nd day we dropped off the kayaks and unloaded all of our backpacking stuff stored in the hull of the boat. We backpacked to our 2nd campsite of the trip crossing several places where we had to take off our shoes and roll our pants up. The third day we backpacked all day to a secluded campsite on the beach. The fourth day we backpacked back to a water taxi pickup. We covered over 20 miles between the kayaking a backpacking.

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More Fox Glacier ice climbing
Preparing for our last 2 climbs. Danielle tried to bail out on the last climb, but after a little encouragement she made it to the top!!
Ice picking through a cave - Danielle caught this picture at the last minute. I started to slide as we went through this cave and if my ice picks had not sunk into the ice I was on my way to sliding about 150 yards down the glacier.

Fox Glacier heli-ice climbing (See Slideshow below): Danielle and I had the opportunity to go to Fox Glacier. We were helicopted into the glacier and hiked for about 45 minutes to our first ice climbing spot. We were able to climb 6 walls. It was probably the most unnerving experience because the ice is constantly melting around you and the only thing securing you is a screw put in the ice by the guide once you determine where you want to climb. The view was amazing with pure blue-white ice formations surrounding you and green mountains with waterfalls overflowing onto the glacier.

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Ice cream on the beach in Sumner (south of Christchurch) after mountain biking Beach in Sumner

Beginning of the side biking trail - if you fell to the wrong side it was a long hard way to the bottom.

Mountain top rode overlooking Christchurch and Lyttleton Harbor

We took a Gondola ride in Christchurch to the top of a mountain and biked down about 10 miles.

We got to take a small hike once we were on top of the mountain before we started to mountain bike.

View from one of the stops on the bikes.

Gondola ride up the mountain.

Danielle and I drove up to Kaikoura, which is famous for whale watching trips. The weather was bad the day of the trip and we didn't get to go; however, we saw some incredible stuff to make up for the lack of whales. Here is a seal randomly sitting on the rocks just off the road into Kaikoura. A view from the Peninsula hike we did in Kaikoura.

We saw one of the most spectacular sights I have seen. This is at least 500 dolphins less than 100 yards off the road leading into Kaikoura. We literally looked over and saw the water churning with what we thought was fish. The dolphins were clearing the water and doing flips - it was seriously better than any show I have seen at an aquarium.

More dolphins!!

Lake Wanaka continued....There were several island with hikes and several hikes around the coast of the lake. This is one hike our ground made up to a point overlooking the lake. This is the 2 man life boat attached to the house boat. This was an innocent trip during the day, but 5 people in the 2 man life boat at 3 am was another story especially after the motor flooded without paddles in the boat (fortunately Danielle and I were not part that diaster).

We played Charades at night to keep us entertained. This is Danielle's acting out the "Secret Garden" -needless to say, nobody got her clues.

10 of us rented a house boat March 13-15 on Lake Wanaka and of course jumping from the topped the list. The water in Lake Wanaka was cold enough to take your breath away, but was crystal clear and the locals said it's pure enough to drink.Putting together a puzzle during the down time - a picture of a Koala no doubt.

My first fishing lesson with Danielle on Lake Wanaka.

This house boat was built by the owner after he traveled to the U.S. and got the idea. It had 2 queen size bed state rooms and 2 bunk rooms and a huge kitchen/living room.

Hanmer Springs....honeymoon. We stayed at the Braemer Lodge outside of Hanmer Springs, which are known for their hot springs. Unfortunately the hot springs looked more like a theme park (think kids playing Marco-Polo). However, the horseback riding and hikes around Hanmer were amazing. These pictures include a 3+ hour waterfall track we hiked one day. More pictures to come from our horseback riding experience.