Firstly, “too meke” is Maori for “too much” and seems to have become a slang way of saying, “wow, I’m laughing so hard my ribs hurt”.

These past two weeks have been fantastic despite some bad weather. Last weekend Morgan, Jenna and I, took a trip with Uni to a local farm. The farm was only about 15 minutes outside of town and the weather was beautiful. They fed us a delicious lunch of pies, sausage rolls and desserts before walking us up to the top of one of the hills. The farm was huge and we had great views of Mt Karioi and the Waikato River from the top. Our guide and host, Neville, told us that, technically, you could see both the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Later, we watched the sheepdogs muster the sheep so they could be sheared and everyone watched while the sheep went from being fluffy and cute to bald and slightly scary looking. It was a really fun day trip, everyone learned a lot about farm life and petting some sheep is really just a necessary thing to do if you live in New Zealand.

 

Thomas, Morgan, Jenna and I at the farm ^

 

This weekend we had planned to hike the Tongariro Crossing down in Tongariro National Park, a 7 hour hike over the volcanoes and to the summit of Mt. Nagarahoe, also known as Mt. Doom from The Lord of The Rings.

 

Nagarahoe ^ 

 

Maori legend has it that when Ngatoroirangi, the high priest and navigator of Te Anawa, one of the first Eastern Polynesian canoes to land in New Zealand, climbed Tongariro, a strong south wind blew and he almost froze. He called on his sisters from the Maori homeland for help and they arrived in the form of fire, leaving geysers and volcanic activity as they travelled across the North Island to Tongariro to warm the priest. The name Tongariro means “south wind” and “seize” representing the near death of Ngatoroirangi.

Clearly this legend has some merit, because as we arrived in the National Park, the skies were grey, the jackets were out and the forecast was predicting gale force winds. Luckily our hostel, a backpackers in the middle of the park, was awesome. We were picked up from the gas station where our bus dropped us by an Aussie called Alex and driven into the wilderness. We unpacked went exploring, saying hello to Daisy the pig and the adorable foals in the paddock.

 

The gang under The Crossing sign ^

After deciding the weather was too horrible for exploring, we opened a case of Speight’s beer as we settled in for the night. The hostel had a games room which had a secret wardrobe to Narnia which added to its appeal and a brand new glow in the dark paintball shed out the back so later on in the evening, everyone trekked over there with the hostel’s owner Bryan for some fun. It was my first time playing paintball and at first I was pretty terrified. We had a few practice rounds, shooting the piles of tyres and the noise it made echoed through the barn. All in all, I don’t think I did too badly, although I wasn’t really keen on sacrificing myself to get the flag. Some of the welts on people’s arms and legs after the game were enormous and I’m glad I got away with relatively few!

 

PAINTBALL!!!! ^

That night we went to bed praying for the weather to clear up since the crossing would be cancelled if it didn’t. No one slept much and when 6:30am dawned with howling winds and torrential downpour, we knew the crossing wasn’t going ahead. Instead we headed up to Mt. Ruapehu and took a three hour hike from the Whakapapa (pronounced with an F instead of a Wh. Easy compared to “Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakit anatahu” which is actually a place!!!!) ski field to Taranaki Falls. The walk was great even though it was pouring and you couldn’t see the mountains through the mist.

 

Alex came and picked us up around 3pm and we headed to the pub for a pint as we watched New Zealand cream South Korea in Rugby. That evening, everyone gathered round the table and a good time was had by all as a bottle of red wine became champagne, Carlsberg and Jim Beam. There were another couple of kiwi guys hanging out with us and kept repeating “too meke” when they were laughing, which is the first time I’ve actually heard it in conversation.

 

Group shot ^

The hostel was the friendliest I’ve ever been to and sitting round the table with Bryan, Alex and another guy who worked there, Luke, we felt like extended family, even helping out with some mural painting and replacing the toilet paper in the bathrooms at 2am! At 4am, we decided to call it quits as there was still a vague hope the weather would clear up and the crossing would be available in the morning.

No such luck, but we’re already making plans to go back next weekend for a second attempt. The volcanoes are beautiful in good weather and are something that we really don’t want to miss out on!

 

What we would have seen, had the weather been nice ^

Karen

 

 

 

Location: Hamilton, New Zealand