I can't carry it for you Mr. Frodo, but I can carry you!

I climbed mount doom yesterday and was lucky enough to use that quote while going up. It was called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. One of the most amazing things I've ever done. It's three peeks and one is an active volcano. Climbing up was full of volcanic rock and bubbling mud pools. It was about a 7 hour hike. I went to two other people, Dan and Xenia. They where slower and I took off after the first 10 mins and did the rest my self. It's a 19k crossing from start to finished but there are a few side tracks you can do. I climbed to the top of Mount Tongeriro while I was waiting for the others, who never ended up catching up. And it was crazy. We have big mountains in Idaho but when you're on the top, there are lots of other big mountains. Here they where the other big ones. You can see coast to coast from top. Reallly crazy view. I wish my camra was working I missed so many good pictures on that hike. It's the site where they filmed mount doom and Mordor for lord of the rings. It really felt like I was in mordor.

Alright, so that was yesterday. It's been awhile since I've had time to write, and a lot has happened. I spent 3 days in Rotorua, a town that is full of geothermic pools. It smells like sulfur, but I like it. I stayed in a room with two of the best people ever, Peter and Maggie. They were two germans and we had the best time. It's funny basically 50% of the people I meet traveling are germans. There's 70,000 german people here right now, and they arn't giving any more german visas.
I  went on a rafting trip in Rotorua on the Kaituna river. It normal costs $70 for the trip and $40 for the photos. But Dan was trying to get river work, so he got to go for free, and since I was with him, they guy left me go for the price of a 12 pack of beer, only $21. The Kaituna is famous because it has the biggest waterfall you can comercialy raft over. It's 21 feet tall, and crazy. The whole thing was awesome. A bunch of class 5 rapids. Loved it.
More happened Rotorua, but I'll save it for later.
We hitch hiked to taupo and got picked up by a really lovley lady named Jane. She gave us a big tour of the town, we had tea with a bunch of old Kiwi ladys in their house, and then she took us to her home where she fed us diner, amazing mushrooms on toast, and we talked for a while. Her husband Kim, who is an archer, took us to the park and tought us archery. The whole thing was amazing. We stayed two nights at a hostel where we met Xenia, who was another german girl. The third night, we decided to camp for free at a hotspring. There was no camping there, so we waited untill late to set up our tent. I was the only one who went in the hotspring. I soaked for an hour or so before bed, and then work up at 6:00am to go back in. Dan and Xenia were still sleeping. I sat there for a while, and a Maori man joined me. He turned out to be a wild pig hunter. We talked a few hours and he told me about his tribe, family, storys about Maori culture, and how he hunted pigs. He only used dogs and a small knife, tackling the boars, fliping them over, and killing them. The whole thing was amazing, he offered me some of the pig he cought and cooked. I couldn't say no to being offered free wild boar hunted by a real maori with his bare hands. So after 6 years, I ate meat again. It was good. I'm still a vegitarian, though I'll eat meat if it comes from some where like that. It's just way to cool. Maori culture has a lot to do with hot springs, he was soaking there to get ready to go into the bush for a hunt that day. A few hour after that Dan and Xenia woke up and we hitched to Turangi. Not much to Turangi, it's the biggest trout fishing area in the world, but we where just go to climb Tongeriro. This is a lot of typing for me right now so I'll end the story here. Dan, Xenia and myself went our seperate ways today. Dan finaly found a rafting job in Turangi. I hitched to Napier today with a few differnt rides, the best being couple who had the EXACT taste in music that I do. Crazy, but it was really nice having good music. And now I'm in a crazy hostel called the  Criterion Art Deco Backpackers. It's an old victorian hotel that was fixed to be a hostel. It's really great. Sorry if my spelling or gramar is bad in this, no time to re-read, internet is expensive.
Alright, here's a few pictures from the time I was in Auckland till Taupo, from Dan's Camera. Mine is still broken.




                                        Waiting for the ferry in Auckland.

This is the beach, boat, and island I talked about a while ago. We took that boat to that island wayyy out there. Crazy.

                                                  Hitching to Raglan.

               Me and my German friend Sebastian in Raglan eating muffins.

 . 

That is Okeri Falls, we rafted over.

 

Dan and I are in the front.

                                 This is a river in Taupo called Huka Falls.