Alright, so I started the Kiwi experience the 28th and finished it up in Christchurch on the 21 of January - the day I'm headed to the airport to meet my parents as they head over here for a three week vacation! I (was) literally sitting and waiting for them to arrive while I wr[o]te up this post and (was) extremely excited to see them
So I hopped on the giant, bright green Kiwi bus excited about where the next month was going to take me. The bus is a hop on/hop off travel bus where you can get on and off where ever you like (although most people have tight timetables and everyone usually likes to stick together). The bus wasn't completely packed that first day so it was kind of nice to have a bit of room. We headed from Auckland up to the Coromandel where we did a hike down to Cathedral Cove. It was slow going as there was lots of Christmas traffic and it was a rainy day so even though it was a nice hike it was wet and we couldn't snorkel or spend time on the beach. I felt like I didn't have enough time in the Coromandel so if I can swing it, I'm gonna head back there later in February when I head back to NZ.
The next day we left Whitianga and headed back down to Rotorua - the geothermal city that reeks of sulphur. This time round I hit up the luge track up on the hill just outside the town. Luging is like soap box derby's except you're not supposed to race... but everyone does anyway. There were about half a dozen of us who went and did this and it was SO much fun. You sit in little carts (just like Mario Kart minus banana peels) and zip down a pavement track. If you're unlucky (like Ellis was) you can wipe out and get some nasty road rash. This was the kick off to one of the most intense and adrenaline filled weeks of my life. By then end of it nothing really impressed me.
The next morning we left Rotorua but on our way out we stopped to Zorb. Zorbing is climbing inside giant plastic bouncy balls filled a bit with water. Then you roll down a hill inside of it. How could I go to NZ and NOT do this?? So I did a Zorb then jumped across the road to do the Swoop which is a swing lifted 37m high by a crane. You're tucked inside a sleeping bag type contraption and when you get to the top, the guy on the bottom counts you down and you pull the chord. The guy I did it with pulled the chord for us and I took a video as I screamed my way to the bottom. It was pretty amazing - what an adrenaline rush.
Right after that we hopped on the bus to head down to Waitomo for an extreme day of black water rafting in caves 60m below ground. I had no idea what I was really in for but I was excited. The rafting people picked us up around 4pm and we headed to their office to get geared up. 5mm thick wetsuits with accompanying jacket over top plus socks and boots – it was gonna be cold and damp in the caves. We headed down to the cave entrance and practiced some basic abseiling techniques. I had no idea what this was but it's when you are hooked up to a harness and rope and lower yourself down using your hands and clips. We got to lower ourselves 35meters down in the dark through a tiny tiny tiny opening with just a headlamp. We got to the bottom then got to zipline in pitch black to a lower part of the caves. It's really cold and damp below so we had a cup of hot chocolate and some baking and then cliff jumped with an innertube into the cold river water. From there we tubed down the river checking out the amazing glow worms sparkling like stars on the roof of the cave system. It's actually the glowworms waste that bioluminesces but it is so cool to see in the dark. After that we got pulled back up the river and went for a little swim. Anything that wasn't covered in wet suit was quite chilly so it was great to keep moving. We stopped for another hot juice and chocolate break and took some fun pictures with our headlamps in the dark. Next we stopped to catch a glimpse of an eel swimming around in a cave and then climbed through a little tunnel and climbed up the walls overtop of waterfalls and out through another cave entrance. In total it took about 5 hours and we were underground for about 3. When we got back we got some hot soup and bagels which was a nice finish to the adventure. That night we headed down to Curly's bar where I attempted and completed the Around the World Challenge which is drinking ten pints of beer (halfway through one of them is water) in a particular order. I was successful at this, and even successful at having no hangover the next morning!
We got up early the next day and headed down to Taupo where we were going to spend New Year’s Eve. We stopped to check out the Huka Falls, a set of waterfalls that drains Lake Taupo (about 220,000 L per second) and then headed to our hostel to unload everything for the next few days. I was skydiving this afternoon so after I got settled in, I got picked up by Taupo Tandem Skydive and headed out to their airport. I did a 4play, which is four extreme adrenaline events in one day (skydive, bungy jump, helicopter ride & Huka Falls jet boat). Since it was New Years day the next day, I had to do my Skydive on NY Eve. So I got to the skydive place and they briefed me on everything that was going to happen. They hooked me up into my coveralls and skydive gear then told me I had to wait for the pilot so I chilled out for almost an hour before they were ready to go. It was almost 5pm at this point and I was literally the last jump of 2010. I was the first on the plane and the last to jump out. There were a few other people jumping as well, but they were all veterans at it and doing it for fun – I was the only one doing a tandem. So I boarded the plane and watched the amazing scenery as we headed up 15,000ft. Taupo is an extraordinary place to jump – and on a clear and sunny day like mine, you can see all the way from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the North Island. I wasn’t nervous at all for my jump – this has been something I’ve wanted to do my entire life so I couldn’t get the huge grin off my face the entire time.
So my tandem buddy, Albert, got me all suited & helmeted up on the flight up and briefed me on how to exit the plane. We got to the edge and before I knew it, we had jumped out and were free falling at 200km/hr for 60seconds. Skydiving is so much different than bungying as you don’t really have a perspective of how fast you’re falling, you just enjoy the wind in your face, the view, and the ultimate freedom of falling. After about a minute he pulled the parachute chord and it opened successfully :D It was more of a jerk up in the air than I expected but it wasn’t too bad. For the next 10 minutes or so we floated gracefully down to the ground, enjoying the view and spinning in circles. We landed fine and I had completed my first ever skydive! I picked up the videos and pictures I bought and headed back to the hostel. What a way to ring out 2010! I grabbed a quick supper then watched the sunset with Chris and then headed back to start getting ready for the evening. We ended up bar hopping a little bit that night and I even got proposed to! It was actually quite hilarious as I played along with it and people believed us and congratulated us all night long. How spectacular to be one of the first places in the world to ring in the new year. We partied till the bars closed around 4am and Richard and I grabbed a delightful hotdog from a late night vendor.
I was up early the next morning as I was doing my bungy jump at 10am. My buddy Ellis came along with me for moral support and we stood in line waiting for a bit. I got all suited up and was actually really nervous. Coming over to NZ I knew I was going to go skydiving, and had assumed if the right opportunity came up I would bungy jump but it isn’t exactly on the top of my list of things to do. I was pretty nervous and when I stood on the edge for a second or two I wondered if I was actually going to go through with it. The guy said the longer I waited the harder it gets to do so I sucked it up, put my arms over my head and buny’d 47m down to the river below me. I had asked to get my arms wet but they can’t guarantee it and I just missed the water below me. Falling wasn’t tooooo bad, but the point at which I bounced up to my highest point and down again I screamed haha. What an intense adrenaline rush! After my jump I headed back to the hostel and desperately wanted to sleep but was getting picked up in an hour for my helicopter ride. I got to the Heli place and hopped in the front of a four-seater helicopter and enjoyed another spectacular aerial view around Taupo. My next stop after that was the Huka Falls Jet Boat and they dropped me off in the helicopter. That was actually pretty cool as I literally arrived by helicopter and had someone run out to meet me – all the people at the prawn farm and the restaurant were looking at me lol. The jet boat is a boat that runs by water propulsion and because of this you can go in shallow water and crank 360s in the water. After the last 24 hours I felt like nothing could impress me but the 30 minute ride was actually pretty fun.
That night I spent a fairly mellow evening hanging out with people as I had to be up at 5am for one of the most amazing hikes I have ever done in my life: The Tongariro Crossing . It’s an 18.5km hike across the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It’s considered one of the greatest days treks in the world and after completing it I can see why! It was an hour’s ride out to the park and we got going around 730am. The first 5km were easy with a breathtaking view of volcanoes around us and by 9am we reached the base of Mount Ngauruhoe (also known as Mount Doom from LOTR). It’s 7500 feet high and last erupted 33 years ago. There was a group of five of us that decided to take on the 3 hour return hike on top of the trek and we started our ascent to the summit. It was such a grueling hike to the top but worth every moment of burning caves and lungs. The slope is about a 45 degree angle and there is no specific pathway to climb up, you blaze your own trail through all the tephra. It was like walking through a larger version of sand and most of the time you had to use your hands to scramble up. It took about an hour and half to two hours to make it to the top – but boy! the view you had when you got up there was indescribable. We could look straight down into the crater of the volcano, or out and across at the rest of the Tongariro crossing. We stopped and had some snacks and ‘gross’ candy at the top and just enjoyed the view. It was also extremely windy up there so you had to be careful where you stood so you didn’t fall down the crater or roll back down the volcano. We slipped, slid, and scrambled down the slope and dumped the dirt out of our shoes at the bottom and continued on with the rest of our hike – another 12km to go. We had to keep to a specific time table or we’d miss our bus back to Taupo and would have to hitchhike so we didn’t get as much time to spend at the emerald lakes as we wanted to but we had some fabulous views and got some incredible pictures. We finished the hike just after 4pm – what a long but amazing day it was! That night back at the hostel we rewarded ourselves with some beer and a dip in the lake as it was our last night in Taupo and we were headed to River Valley the next day…
