Ok…so I know it’s been a while and yes, I know its also been a couple of weeks since Easter. Alas, I have no defence other than I have been exceptionally lazy. But dear friends, here I am once more to fill you in on my Easter weekend and Auckland antics!
Despite living my little ‘Friends’ fantasy (I work in a coffee shop) whilst living here in Auckland (although technically I’m in the country…people laugh when I tell them where I live), I have managed to get out and visit the places on my North Island ‘to do’ list. Granted, they have been fleeting visits….all in one weekend in fact…but hey, you can’t say I procrastinate!
Easter Weekend…
…was the date of my speed fuelled mission. Complete with mattress in the back of the car and personal chauffer (a.k.a Mike, a friend from Africa whose hospitality I have been abusing this past month and a half), we headed off on our little three day adventure! First stop - Waitomo!
Waitomo…
…is the home of the Glow-worm caves and, more famously, Black Water Rafting. We demolished both expeditions in one afternoon by combining them on a three hour tour.
Now, before my parents have a ’she’d not insured for dangerous black water rafting activities’ heart attack, let me stress that BWR is NOT as dangerous as it sounds. Disassociate BWR from the images of White Water rafting carnage that you may have seen or experienced. BWR isn’t so called because the rapids are that much more dangerous, in fact they are rather tame and are hardly rapids at all. In fact, it is simply because the adventure takes place in the pitch black….in caves….65metres underground…in black tubes…..in black wetsuits…with head lamps.
These caves were discovered hundreds of thousands of years ago by local Mauri’s. Deep in these caves run ‘rivers’ of the coldest water I have ever willingly thrown myself into. Living in these waters under the hills of Waitomo are creatures that even Mike feared….needless to say, putting my face under the water was not an option.
Once in the caves, we alternated between hiking through the tiny corridors with only trickles of water as our guides, to jumping backwards off waterfalls into our black tubes where we would then paddle (with numb hands!) by the lights of our head torches down stream.
As we reached a certain, wet, numb part of our tour (after jumping off a particularly high waterfall in the pitch black) we all donned the ‘Eeel’ position (i.e. arms under the armpits of the person in front of you), switched off our headlamps and looked up. Your first impression was of stars. You momentarily forgot that you were underground as you became mesmerised by the tiny blue clusters of stars above you. It was when you’re head hit a rock that you came back to reality – you were underground, in a black tube, in the dark, staring up at glow-worms…not stars. Whilst it is a magical thought to imagine that these glow-worms are beautiful, shimmering creatures, the reality is much more disgusting. The ‘glow’ part of such a worm is in fact larvae poo. Yes, poo. I think I’ll stick with my disney-esque image thank you very much. But they were exceptionally cool to gaze at. It sounds cheesy but they really did light up the chambers ever so slightly and you were simply mesmerised by their blue-ish light. Incredible.
After leaving the glowworm chamber and hiking and paddling for a while longer with our head lamps on, our two guides called us to a halt. ‘Alright guys!’ they said, beaming, ‘We’re going to play a game!’ A hesitant hush fell over the group….what kind of game could you play underground, on a river, in a black tube. Why, find your way out of the cave in the dark of course! We thougth they were joking. They weren’t. Needless to say I was fairly bumped and bruised when we finally found the light that signal an exit from the cave that had been our home for the past three hours. But was it fun? Definately – where else can you spend three cramped hours underground? Oh yeah….London!
Rotorua….
…was our next desitination. Along the way we stopped at the Prawn farm (where we demolished 1kg of Prawns and played Prawn golf) and the Craters of the Moon (huge smoking thermal craters), but these were mere ticky tours….Rotorua was our goal.
We of course made it, despite Mike’s typical male navigational skills, and the first thing that hit us? The smell. The sulphur smell enters every part of you within 10 seconds. Rotten eggs. Lovely. Here we joined a Kiwi encounter as I still, despite being here for 2 months, had yet to see an actual kiwi! As it turned out, we joined the last tour of the day which meant we got to watch the kiwi’s being put to bed. But before that, we learnt a lot about then in the other aspects of the tour. For example, did you know that the Kiwi is one of the most viscious birds alive? That their wings are only the size of our little fingers? That they can grow to the size of turkeys? That the are closer to mammals than birds because, unlike birds, their bones aren’t filled with air sacs? Or that, the size of a kiwi egg compared to the female kiwi’s body is the same as a human woman giving birth to a 35lb baby? Needless to say all women winced when that fact was announced. Men being rubbish simply looked blank. Bastards.
We spent some time in the area where all the eggs are incubated and learnt a bit about a Kiwi egg. They are the same density as Ostrich or Emu eggs i.e. if you were to stand on them they wouldn’t break. One thing the kiwi females have right however is that, once the egg is laid, it is the males who then sit on the egg for 90days until it hatches. Granted, this is because the female has just had a 35lb baby crushing her organs and restricting her stomach for the past 13 days and if she didn’t eat she’d die, but still….the men nurturing the egg until it hatches? Kiwi females are smart!
Luckily, we were able to witness one of the eggs begin to hatch. A beak had poked through the air sac inside the egg and begun to slowly break the shell. It was going to be a slow process so we were unable to watch it hatch completely, but we were able to witness something amazing. To check the progression of the young kiwi chick within the egg, its father (and now the experts nurturing them) would whistle. They would whistle at the egg, which an expert did for us, and the egg would either be heard to whistle back or simply shake. We got to experience both of these and it was simply amazing, surreal but amazing. Who’d have ever thought I’d hear an egg whistle?
Putting the Kiwi’s to bed was worth the price in itself as it meant that we got to have a good look at them. As they are nocturnal animals, it is obviously hard to see their colours and features clearly in the nocturnal house because…well….it’s dark! To put them to bed, the guides simply need to turn on the lights. A backwards philosophy I know but it works! For the few minutes that the lights were on we got to truly see the shades of their feathers, their long beaks with their nostrils at the end of their beaks, their claws and their midget wings. They are the weirdest birds I have ever seen, but by far one of the coolest.
Taupo…
…was our Easter Monday destination. Here we met up with Amy and Lofty as it was Amy’s birthday!!!!!!! As previously planned, oh about 12 months ago, Amy and I were to go skydiving. I coudln’t wait. AFter the experience in Africa I simply could not wait to throw myself out of a plane again. Except this time, I would be doing it from not 10, not 12, not 14 but 15,000ft! Wow! Was a crazy? Probably. Did I care? No!
It was simply amazing. The freefall was just short of a minute and is by far my favourite part of the dive. I loved it. The 5minutes I spent after the chute went were peaceful and I got to really experience the beauty of New Zealand. I swear, you could even see the curve of the earth and I have (very unattractive!) photos to prove it. I loved every second of it and have definately become addicted to skydiving. I bet my parents are thrilled!
So…that was my Easter weekend. Of all the things to do on the North Island, those were what I really wanted to do and I’ve done it. I know that I can now leave New Zealand satisfied. I’ve experienced everything that I came here to experience and you know what? It’s made me love this country even more. I’ll be sad to leave a place that I have come to consider a home. I’ll definately return….it’s only when that is the question.
