A Final Day Up North

DAY 3 (a day of driving)

Woke up and GOT TO SHOWER! WEYYOO! As I’m not a morning person, the outlook for the day seemed dismal, but WOW a warm shower changed everything around! I feel bad for the guys (who want to hardcore official “trampers”) because, since they refuse to shower, will not understand this feeling whatsoever! Instead, they demand we find a natural creek in which to cleanse, and so we embark on a mission to find hot springs.

Unfortunately, the creek we found lost some of its mystique, because we didn’t stumble upon it like the other places. Instead, we asked for directions, which lead us first to a volcanic reserve, where we had breakfast at an overpriced cafe. Satisfied with the meal, we headed to the creek, which we were told warmed up to 40 degrees! Although it was a bit muddy, it did not disappoint! The heat was a nice change from the cold night, and it was so amazing that nature can actually create a naturally steaming creek. It was like a hot tub!

Eventually, we drove down to Taupo for Lunch. At this point, we decided we were going to do an epic drive through the (absolutely gorgeous, snowy) mountains to Napier, but when we got to Napier and established that the night life was nonexistant, we decided to night drive all the way down to Wellington. For anyone wanting to look on a map, this day we drove from 2 hours north of Taupo, to Wellington. We covered about half of the North Island, and it was epic. However, it was rainy, cloudy, and predicted to stay that way for the next couple days, so we didn't miss out on much. However, even with the crappy weather, none of us took the beautiful scenery for granted, even for a second.

Even desite the amazing places we had seen on the North Island though, we were all rather impatient to get down to the south Island... It was supposed to be better weather down there as well!