Over the mountains and over the streams

We have arrived in the aptly named town, National Park (I appreciate it both for its directness and the ease of pronounciation). We are staying tonight in a backpackers before heading out on the first of our Great Walks tomorrow morning.

Our hostel is all wooden and houses a huge climbing gym as well, just a massive space about the size of a barn with holds and lines all around. Sadly it is not open today as most of the guests are here for the skiing. Our roomies are a Norwegian and two Austrians who are in town competing in an extreme skiing event and have been here for a couple days planning on staying the weekend. From the massive wooden benches and tables in the kitchen we can look out the sliding glass door and see the mountains, the middle one is actually a volcano and is better known as "Mount Doom" from Lord of the Rings.

We talked to a couple local guides in town and they said the Northern Circuit is good. The freezing level has moved up beyond where we will be spending most of the walk and other then rain tomorrow there should be decent weather, especially for when we reach the summit and the craters. We're planning on hitching in tomorrow morning to Whakappa (Fuck-a-pappa) to get our DOC permits and then head in for three nights on the mountain. Afterwards the guide we talked to told us about a side route that will take us directly out to the rode where we can hitch to the beginning of the Whangannui paddle. There's been some flooding there so we might have to wait a day or two once there but we are both really looking forward to the 145km paddle. The plan after that is to get back out on the road, hitch down to Wellington and spend a couple days maybe finally washing these pants, getting our ferry tickets and relaxing before heading to the South Island.

We met a guy at the hostel this morning that is going to try to join us for a couple walks on the South Island and are starting to meet people who are putting us in touch with others further south so we might have places to stay, local advice or just a free beer.

On the bus today we got to see lakes, mountains and thousands and thousands of sheep. Its starting to feel a lot more like what I thought the trip would be like and we're both really excited to get started on the first mountain trek. Not sure when internet will be back up and available but will be posting (hopefully with a couple pictures) when I can.