I was looking for somewhere to escape the rather familiar Wellington. It's not that I don't like the city, but it was getting old pretty fast and I needed toget away for a little while. I came across a place called Waitomo, which is located in the northwestern part of the North Island, just south of Auckland. It didn't seem too exciting until I read about the Waitomo Glowworm Caves, and Black Water Rafting. Now, this I had to try. Mentioning my interest in this unique adventure during one of our week night dinners, my flat mate Natalie suggested she would go along with me and that we could stay at her housefor the weekend in New Plymouth. That is exactly what we did. We left that next thursday morning, too early for my taste, and headed off to her house.
While I visited Natalie and her lovely parents, we had an extra day to explore her town before our Black Water Rafting trip. That Friday, we climbed Paritutu Rock (top) and took a little trip to see Mt. Taranaki, or Egmont Volcano (bottom). New Plymouth was exactly what I was looking to escape to: quite, yet had plenty to do, and of course free accomadation!!
The next day,we got up early, yet again, to drive the 2 and a half hours up to Waitomo. It was an amazing drive, so I didn't mind that I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Once we arrived, we checked in and looked around the cafe they had there. We spotted a map of the caves around the area and laughed at the funny names they had, like Pete's Kitchen and Banana Smoothie. Next, we met our tour guides, along with the other 5 people that were to join us on our trip. We suited up into our wet suites and funny looking helmets and harnesses and drove to the starting point. It began with a 40m ab-sail down a hole in the ground (some squeezing and manuvering were invovled) to get us down into the cave. We then took a little walk to a point where we had to use the "flying fox" to get to the next point. In other words, we ziplined down onto a huge rock! From there, I along with one other guy jumped with our inner tubes into the water. Take note that we weren't able to see how far down the water was because it was pitch black! After that excitement, we floated down the river, shivering in the freezing water while looking at the glowworms on the ceiling. Also note, the glowworms are actually maggots that are burning off their poop in order to attract food...lol gross I know! The next hour or so involved more walking through "drunken stumble" and climbing up two waters to finally emerge into themiddle of forest. (Picture below)
Like the title says, this post will be a mix of about everything in the past month, including classes. I thought it would be cool to show everyone why I am actually in New Zealand. Below are some pictures of campus and the views I see almost everyday walking to and from class. Right now I am on mid-semester break so I don't have to worry too much about reading and class work. I'll leave that till I get back to Wellington in a couple of weeks.
Again I am going to switch up the topic in the post and jump to the present. As of right now, I am staying at another of my flat mates house, Rebecca. Her and her family are very nice in letting me stay here for the weekend, in Palmerston North. Why, you might ask am I staying in Palmerston North? Well, it was the closest place I could stay to Mokai Gravity Canyon. If you haven't already looked at my facebook pictures, then this means nothing to you...yet. Yesterday, I experienced my first bungee jump!!! It was the most insane, craziest, and scariest thing I have ever done in my entire life, and I don't think anything could really compete with that. It was definitely a personal challenge, standing on the edge of a bridge, looking down in the canyo
n, with just a bungee strapped to your ankles, and making myself jump. I took advice from Rebecca, that when they counted me down 3-2-1 BUNGEE, I jumped right away. If I had waited just a couple of seconds after I don't know if I would have had the guts to do it, but I d
id and I am so happy. I AM ADDICTED!! I for sure want to try again, seeing as that the camera there wasn't working and I was unable to get a DVD of my adrenaline rush. Rebecca was nice enough to take some with my camera (below), but the pictures definitely don't do it justice. But as for now, I am going to enjoy my time here in Palmerston North until I head up north to take a trip around the Bay of Islands, which will probably be my next post so be on the lookout for that!!
Until Next Time!!
