Continuing along the southern coast of the North Island

Look! There's a seal!

This seal has a very Tango like expression on its face. (Tango is  my step-dog.)

Mom found the seal's rest so appealing she copied. 

After all that resting we needed to walk up some stairs. 

Crank that Dan!

In case you were wondering how my Chaco tan is coming along. 

Pinnacles

We needed a little break from city life (we are country folk after all) so we headed out to the Putangirua Pinnacles.  Another filming location, and another really awesome place.  

Now this is New Zealand, sheep, oceans and mountains.

Kelly and Dan in front of the awesome pinnacle formations. 

We walked to the beach at sunset and started a rock throwing competition.  Well, it wasn't a competition too much, Dan was by far the best rock thrower, we think he's got some hobbit blood in him somewhere. 

Ow, Dad hurt his arm.  

Market Day

After spending a day inside we decided to spend a day out in the sun.  We had also read about a market by the museum so we first went to the market, bought some food then went to the Dr. Seuss gallery and the Te Papa museum.  Well, the rest of the family went to the museum, I spent a couple hours on skype talking to my dear Isabel!  

The fruit in the bright sun was so pretty!

I find this meat on a stick to be questionable.  (Actually it was very delicious, and not questionable.)

This marionette was an artist, painting children's portraits.  The boy on the right was getting his portrait painted, and both he and the other kids watching took it so seriously!  It was awesome!

While I was talking on skype, I watched people jumping off the dock.  Sometimes a bunch of people would line up around the rectangle and jump in sequence into the water.  It was pretty neat, but unfortunately I wasn't really thinking when I was taking a video of the second time watching the jumping.  The man nearest to me was by far the largest one of the bunch and when he jumped he made an enormous splash, getting me and my camera quite wet.  Luckily the camera was fine, and I got dried off quite quickly in the sun.

Directing the jump.

And they are off!

What do you do on a sunny Wellington day?

So Wellington is a wonderful little city, despite it's normally windy and rainy disposition.  So what is it when it's sunny, and still?   Well, it's just dandy.  So what do a family of Americans do when they encounter such rare conditions?  We find free internet for blogging and skyping, and a famous theater to watch a famous New Zealand movie.   We also went up to a high point to look around the city and walked in some parks, so it wasn't all an inside day.  

Wellington, in all her sunny glory.

The fans must be appeased.

Here it is! Embassy theatre, home to the world premiere of The Hobbit!   

It was so sunny outside we still had to wear our sunglasses inside. 

Oh wait, those are 3D glasses for our EPIC MOVIE EXPERIENCE!!!

P.S.  We liked the movie.  Kelly was a little critical of the 3D, 48 frames per second, saying it looked a little too real and you want to suspend some belief when watching a movie.  But overall, we all love Martin Freeman and co, and it was fun watching the scenery that looked familiar.  And for "Sherlock" fans, guess who is going to be in the rest of the Hobbit movies?

Stairways

Various stairways in Wellington. 

Graffiti 

Green

Scaffolding

Diving board

Playground

After all that intense volcano climbing, we needed to slow down a bit.  What does it say about me that I still get excited every time I see a playground?  Especially super sweet ones like this!

Kelly conquering mountains right and left!

Dino slid!

Kelly and Dan's new home!

Whale Rider!

If this playground were in the States, I would make yearly pilgrimages to it.  

Me and Fred.  Notice Dan riding the dinosaur now. 

Octo swing!

Mt. Nguaruhoe, aka Mt. DOOOM!

We left to hike Mt. Ngauruhoe in the wee hours, normally we would not have been able to make ourselves get up that early, but that is the time the shuttle left. Which was good because we wanted to get every bit of hiking day light to do as much of the trail as possible.  We were a little frustrated that we had to pay to take a shuttle to get to the trail head, but I guess they didn't want vehicles parked at the bottom because recent(ish) eruptions caused flying rocks and what not that might damage the cars.  So that was on our minds as we headed out on our journey to summit Mt. Doom.  As if the Ring wasn't enough of a burden...

  

We had heard that the way was quite steep, and that the rocks were loose.  "One step up and two steps back" said the less the congenial DOC ranger we talked to about it.  How anyone makes it up at that rate is pretty impressive, maybe they walk backwards?  Anyway I am not impressed by my decisions that day, because we made a few not so great ones.  The first being that we heard "there is not trail, just follow up where it looks like other people have gone, right next to the sign".  Well, my instincts and experience would say to get to the best view point to see the hike up.  Alas, we just saw a sign, and saw a pretty clear foot trail and followed it.  Decision two, hmm, this is sort of a rock chute that we are climbing up.  The most dangerous thing about this trail being the rocks that hikers knock down above your head that come crashing down to you.  Did I listen to my instincts then either? Nope.  Neither did anyone else in my family I suppose, so I'm not the only fool.  Or the other people that followed us up.  Whoops.  

Taking a break, this stuff is hard to hike up, sort of like hiking up a huge pile of loose gravel!

Finally we get to a section of the mountain that has "solid" ground!

Well, not for long.

So part of this being a very young and not exactly dormant volcano is that it still steams occasionally, and sometimes the rocks that you sit on to take a break are hot, not from radiation heat from the sun, but geothermal heat.  Which is all well and good when you are confidently hiking up, but when you get separated from your family (mistake number three) because you walked to where you thought was solid rock face, but was in fact quite steep rock that sounded hollow under your feet (mistake number four) and you can't go back because going down means GOING DOWN!  you become a whole lot less confident that there won't be even a tiny little rumble that could shoot you off down the very steep slope of cinders. But don't worry, we all made it safely to the top.

Yay!  We made it!

So did all these other people who went up the "right" way.

View of surrounding area.  Yeah, totally worth it. 

One of the coolest things about hiking up a volcano, for me at least, is seeing the crater at the top.

Mom's throwing in the Ring!

And back down!  A lot more fun, especially when you got to make big jumps and sort of slide down it.   Don't worry, we weren't knocking any rocks down that could hit anyone below us, we went a much better way.  

Problem with going down the gravel is that you get stones in your shoes very easily.

So now we see the sign we were supposed to turn at, and it says to  "Beware".  Hmm. 

Kelly and Dan relishing hiking on completely flat, gravel free ground!

Yeah, I conquered that mountain!

From the top, a little out of place chronologically.