We got back to Auckland and parked in the Bangladeshians’ drive way, set the alarm for 5am to head out to work the Guns and Roses show. Saeed drove us to work in his car and it was so nice being able to go above 80 km/hr so easily, it felt a little like a roller coaster. We ended up working from 7am to 2 am. It felt so good to be back at food trucks! Of course Mags and I were put in separate trucks and she of course got the truck with a better view of the venue, so I didn’t get to see her until 2am! My night was so hectic, my line was never ending the entire show. I don’t know if any of these people even went to watch Guns and Roses preform because they were always eating the food! In the midst of the madness one of the customers knocked over the ketchup and it splattered everywhere including on me. But because the line was so long I couldn’t stop to fix it, so I was just slipping around on ketchup with the ketchup all down my leg and in my shoe. Thank goodness Saeed was working with me he scurried around to clean up the mess and tried to get the ketchup off of me while I acted like nothing was wrong taking orders from customers.

By the end of the night I was exhausted! However, I did have the winning truck, we sold the most out of any truck, the closest truck to sell anywhere near us sold a little more than half of what we sold! I would also like to point out this is the 3rd time in a row that I have had the winning truck!

We went to Mike’s to pick up what we earned when we were staying with him, money in the bank, dank dank dank! We pulled in and Charlotte and Kate came running up to us, we missed them so much! Mike ended up paying us in cash, which makes me nervous carrying around cash. We headed to the lime farm where we go to clean the food trucks the day after events. We still had a good time cleaning; I guess it’s just a really good group of people! We had to peace out a little early if we were going to make it to our next campsite and get showers. However we realized we were passing Pokeno ice cream, so like any smart human we chose to eat ice cream instead of shower, always the correct decision!

The next day was Super Bowl Sunday! We had planed to meet up with Stephan and Lara (bakery friends) weeks ago to watch it together (Stephan is a big NLF fan). As we all know Mags beloved Pats pulled off an amazing Super Bowl win and history was made. From the Super Bowl on we have been traveling with Stephan and Lara and it has been a blast! The day after we took it pretty easy because it was raining so we just decided to go see another lighthouse. We parked on the camping ground made an early dinner because Mags and I are old.

we are happier than we look in this photo, I promise

We took a little road trip to the 3 sisters, which is a naturally forming rock formation that you can only see and get to at low tide. We made in perfect time for low tide, but not before stopping at a brewery! Really that day was meant as a rest day because we were preparing to climb Mt. Taranaki. We stayed the night at a campsite only 15 min from the base of the mountain. There we had Dutch pancakes, which I can not suggest more they were so good!

Mt Taranaki

I had looked up 0 information about this hike so I was super not ready for the adventure that lay ahead. I thought like yeah it’s a mount its going to be steep but nothing I cant handle, I was so wrong! It started out with the 4 of us but poor Lara (who doesn’t like to hike anyway she more just gets dragged along on the trails) turned back about an hour in but she knew she was not going to the top. Going up was rough! You had to climb rocks and pull yourself up while not falling off a cliff and then of course there were stairs, way steeper than the Pinnacles stairs. But the worst part, which was the majority of the trail, was the loose rock. You are climbing straight up on land that just slides from underneath you! You take 2 steps forward and slide 3 steps back, it was infuriating! Maggie and I were on the ground most of the time from falling and of course cursing like sailors. Stephan, who we named Fake Sherpa Steve because the boy is so spritely and was never breathing heavy (well not until the slipping rocks), was doing so well and was so nice waiting for us to catch up when he could have ran ahead!

I stayed with Maggie one because there is no way I could keep up with Steve and two because I liked all the breaks we took. I also stayed because the only reason Mags had not turned around to go back was because she knew she couldn’t find her way back down the mountain (It was a horribly marked trail, I see why so many people get lost and need rescuing) and if she made friends with someone who was going down she would have joined…I was not letting that happen, Mags was going to make it! When we made it to the crater that we had to cross to get to the final accent there was snow everywhere. We went from tank tops to 6 layers in a matter of 2 hours.

We finally reached the very top after all of our aches and pains, blisters and scratched hands only to find out that there was 0 view, we were pissed. The entire top part of the mountain was in a cloud so we could barely see each other and then my eyelashes started to freeze! We decided to wait to see if the clouds would clear at all. After and hour they cleared a little and we took real fast pictures before more clouds came. We tried to wait it out to get a better view but we had already spent 2.5 hours at the top so we gave up and headed back down.

If heading up was hard going back down was impossible! There was no way we could walk down the snowy crater so I sat on my butt and slid all the way down, Mags and Sherpa Steve soon followed (I have smart ideas sometimes). Climbing down the rocks was tragic, our hands already hurt but we had to brace all of our weight on our arms and hands to rock climb down. Then we hit the loose gravel and could not remember why we thought this was a good idea in the 1st place or why we thought hiking was fun. We tried to go down at an angle and fell, tried shuffling down and fell, we tried walking so slow and fell, really there was nothing we could do. And it wasn’t like falling in grass you are falling in rocks and it hurts. We were on our asses more than we were on our feet. Once you fell getting back up was ridiculously hard because the mountain was so steep and there was no footing.

On top of the terrain being impossible we spent the whole time going down the trail in a cloud we could see maybe 3 feet in front of us the whole time. Thank god we ran into so Americans who were stopped because they lost sight of the trail. Mags, Steve and I were like just go in the general down directions that sounds good, but these people were smarter. They sent one guy ahead to see if he could find a trail marker. He ran like 2 feet and we lost him and then we tried calling him and no answer! Some how a tour guide got the attention of someone else waiting and yelled us over to the path. Apparently if we had just kept going down we would have hit the edge of the cliff and not the stairs, which we were looking for! Crisis averted.

We finally made it back to the van our knees in so much pain from the descent. We had a well-deserved beer and headed to the pack and save for a treat, we had decided before we even started the hike that we would get two 2L tubs of ice cream to eat in one sitting. Then it was off to our next accommodation. It was Mags and I 1st time couch surfing and it was great. Antonia (Tony) and Jacob had 2 fantastic dogs that I fell in love with and we got real showers, which we really needed for our sore muscles from the climb. We ended up staying 2 nights with Jacob and Tony because they were so awesome.

Then Mags and I were off to see Taumata whakatangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai whenua kitanatahu, the longest named place in the world. It roughly translates to “the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as 'landeater’, played his flute to his loved one”. I was super excited this is my kind of attraction!! Mags was not as excited! Then we were off to Wellington.

End Notes

Super Bowl Sunday turned out to be on a public holiday so free parking. NZ has more public holidays than I have ever heard of, when do these people work.

There are no more green apples. In America there are always green apples available even if they technically aren’t in season. That is not the case here in NZ. Once a fruit or vegetable is no longer in season they disappear from the country like the next day its very bazar.

Maggie hates bananas but likes banana chips, yay magnesium.

Thanks mom for the Canadian mittens they saved my hands and my life going down that mountain!

As we made friends while climbing the mountain many of them drop out and decided to go back. It is more heart breaking than you would think to see these people you have only known for 30 min or so give up.

It took us 4 hours to climb up the mountain and 3 hours to get back down!

Hannah Montana is great who cares about Miley Cyrus when you have some sweet Hannah Montana jams to sing in the car.