Welcome to the North

We have now been in the North island for 9 days and have managed to escape the massive snow storm further south (woo!).  Supposedly, this is the biggest snow storm NZ has seen in the past 20 years... So while everyone else has been preparing for Jack Frost, we hit up some pretty awesome natural wonders.  

One of our first stops since our last blog post was to Mount Doom (from Lord of the Rings -- LOTR).  The mountain is really called Mt. Ngauruhoe; but since I can't seem to pronounce that word at all, we just refer to it as Mount Doom.  

Here is a clip showing Mt. Doom in LOTR: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmp56n_mt-doom-from-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-two-towers-2002_shortfilms#.UcFyAJWROFI

...And the picture below is what the mountain actually looks like in real life.  

Anywho, we did a hike up to another peak so we could get a panoramic view of Mt. Doom - probably one of the best hikes we have done so far (minus the awful climb at the very top...I wanted to vomit).  Jared, on the other hand, was feeling very energetic throughout the entire climb.  Here is a picture of him from the top of our peak.

So after our 5 hour hike, we headed back to Lily of the Valley so we could get to our next destination by nightfall.  Little did we know, Lily of the Valley had other plans for us.  She decided she didn't want to start... Lucky for us there was a hill and two helpful Aussies.  We pushed Lily of the Valley down the hill and got her jump started half-way down.

While we made it safely to our next destination, we were still totally confused about the campervan.  We decided we would just wait until the morning and see how she started up.  Long story short...Lily of the Valley left us stranded AGAIN because her spark plugs were bad.  Here she is gettin' fixed up real nice and purty.

She is as good as new now. ;) 

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The North island is predominately known for their thermal and volcanic activity due to their fault line location.  Jared and I visited the best geothermal park in the North island and got a better glimpse of why the North has this reputation.  Minus the god-awful smell of sulfur, the geothermal park was one of the coolest things we have ever seen.  Here are just a few pictures from the thermal and mud pools.  

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We honestly didn't think our day could get more interesting after our visit to the geothermal park but, oh, how we were wrong.  That evening we planned to visit the Taranaki tribe's village to get a taste of local Maori culture.  The Maori people are similar to our Native Americans back home...but just a little bit more awesome.

The Maori people are bred to be warriors.  They all have a large, stocky build and are beast-like.  Culture and tradition are very sacred to them so when we visited the village, it was important we show our respect.  Anyone who enters a Maori village is given a traditional greeting - which includes a peace offering, delicious meal, and a performance of the haka.  The haka is a war dance the Maori people do when faced with a potential war threat.  The dance is done to bring fear into the enemy.  Because Maori culture is so strong in NZ, the All Blacks rugby team performs the haka at the beginning of each match.      

Just so you can get an idea of what I am talking about, here is a cool video of the All Blacks rugby team meeting a Maori king and performing the haka. The beginning of this clip is similar to what we experienced with the Taranaki tribe.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vxy_-e_hZ8

Here are some pictures from our visit to the Taranaki village.
This first picture is an example of a traditional greeting - rubbing of the noses:

 

 These last two pictures are of Jared trying to learn the haka. ;)

Needless to say, that entire day was eventful and one that we will never forget.

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Even after being here for almost a month and a half, we are still amazed by how beautiful this country is.  Earlier this week we took a hike in a forest that runs along the outskirts of a city.  As we made it to a lookout point we experienced our first geyser.....in the middle of the city! 

And we just thought this picture was pretty awesome....

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Today we got to take a visit to Hobbiton (aka The Shire).  For those of you who don't know, this is one of the movie-sets from LOTR.  This place was absolutely incredible (and I'm not even a die-hard fan).  

 In front of Bilbo Baggins' hobbit hole:

The Green Dragon pub:

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We had a decently long drive today (in the relentless rain) after our visit to The Shire but were blessed with this gorgeous site upon our arrival at the beach.

In the next few days, we are headed up the northern peninsula before we take off for the Samoan islands.  More blogs to come.  Hope you enjoyed the read!