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The Hitch Hiker's Guide to New Zealand

This will be my last entry from NZ. Its been great here but I am pretty excited to be moving on to Asia.I must confess also that the North Island didn't quite hold my attention like the south island did.

Anyway since I last wrote I did the Tongariro crossing otherwise known as Mt. Doom from LOTR. I had the distict misfortune to choose to do it on an absolutely shitty day and saw pretty much nothing as it was cloudy and rainng for most of the day. After having been assured that I needed a guide during the winter I was dismayed that the guide himself told me that I could have just rented the gear and done it on my own. The walk was good but having to constantly stop for a Scottish man about to keel over from a heart attack did get a bit trying towards the end of the day.

One of the coolest things so far though has been trying my hand at hitch hiking which has actually been awesome I managed to get from Tongariro National Park to Rotorua and then up through the Coromandel all the way to Warkworth where freinds of mine from Africa live.I have decided its a great way to meet real Kiwis and sure beats the hell out of taking the bus,its just realy cool to meet all kinds of people and Kiwis seem really interested in finding out about you. I got rides from all sorts of people from bored bus drivers to a guy that told me he had felony convictions for dangerous driving and assault, old ladies and an oldswiss german man whose english was so appalling that I understood maybe 40% of what he said as he gave me a lift in his neon orange sports car. And once when hitching in the rain I decided to call it a day and stay where I was and while walking back into town a lady called out to me to come in out of the rain and I ended up having tea and sandwiches with her and her husband before they drove me to the nearest hostel - amazing.

 So after 2 and bit weeks of that I arrived at my freind's house in Warkworth for some much needed time out from constant movement. After a few days of R&R and some more legendary hospitality from Mo and Ange I am now in Auckland and  will be flying out to Bangkok on Monday to begin the final Asia leg of my trip.

Now as promised, pictures...

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