National Park to Palmerston North

why hello MOUNT DOOM

Ok time to stop slacking!! After our wwoofing experience we took a bus to National Park (the town) and stayed at a backpackers readying ourselves for our backpacking trip: the Northern Circuit loop, a 3-day 2-night trip. The trip was AMAZING, I've never hiked so much in my life. The terrain was everything.. hills, mountain, valleys, sand, plains, forest, emerald pools.. The highlights were definitely the homebrew bourbon we were offered by some of the employees at a hut, and all the cool people we met.



After the trip, we travelled with Yotam, an Israeli guy we met at one of the huts. It was pretty nice being able to use his car for a while!! Just pile our stuff in the front, and the back was this huge comfy mattress. The next few days we were pretty lazy. We pretty much just drove around up the East coast stopping wherever we wanted, taking a swim, napping on the beach, going on a few hikes.. more napping on the beach.. Most towns were pretty dead at night but in Taupo we found some bars and danced to live music. Going into Taupo there were hundreds of bikers, it was like every kiwi got on their bike at the same time. They were all doing 160 kilometers (100 miles) and ending in Taupo where they were having this sweet BMX event.

We parted ways with Yotam in Rotorua and took a 5hr bus ride to Palmerston North to meet up with another guy, Brad, we had met in the bush. He was one of the employees who built one of the huts there. We hung out at his place last night (yay laundry and showers!) and tonight we're going to a beach party with a bunch of kiwis. Half the time we can't understand a word they say even though they're speaking English. Here's an example: Hay Mate
just got out of the bush and now its time to bbq at the batch for tea kiwi style. k? It will be a mean/wikid time.
Tea = dinner, batch = beach house (what??)
Sidenote: Apparently we came here on crate day. One day a year they sell giant bottles of beer that you buy in crates. Lucky us ay?

We wanted to add, in New Zealand its not the 6 degrees of separation, its the 2 degrees of separation. Already we've met a ton of backpackers that know people we've run into. Sooo many awesome people here!

Happy Crate Day!