Yesterday, I climbed a mountain.

In fact, I climbed Mount Doom.

The Tongariro Crossing is considered by many to be the finest day-walk in New Zealand. It was supposed to take 7-8 hours. Jaap and I did it in 6hrs.

It was quite challenging. Perhaps not as bad as Dead Woman's Pass on the Inca Trail in Peru, but it was close.

I found myself singing "put one foot in front of the other..." just to keep going.

It was beautiful! And I'm really happy that I did it. We got home super tired and we flaked out early in the tent only to be awoken by a rainstorm. Luckily, our tent was one of the only ones that stayed dry! Yay for cheap tents!

Now we're in Rotorua.

We went up in the skyline gondola and rode down in the luge twice! Total fun, except that Jaap tried to kill me so I had to pretend to run into him and almost cut him off. Of course, because I'm such a good driver, we avoided all catastrophe.

Tonight I'm going to a traditional Maori concert and meal (hangi) while Jaap hangs out at the YHA.

Tomorrow, we go rafting on the Kaituna River, on grade 5 rapids, down a 7-metre waterfall!

Then we're off for the Coromandel to go soak in the sun. Not that we need it; Jaap and I both got burnt on our big tramp yesterday. Yes, me. I got burnt. I know, shocking.