Off to no-man's land

Even though the situation at Karen's was a bit tense we enjoyed our stay there and we promised that if we were back in Holland by the time Karen and the kids went t there to visit family we'd meet up somewhere for a drink. The following morning Elsbeth picked us up at around 9 and we set off to Te Kaha, which she estimated was around a 3 hour drive. On the way there she stopped in Opotiki (where she'd lived for about 20 years) to drop off some stuff and she took us for some ice-cream as well. Turns out that since the last time Elsbeth went to Te Kaha (some 20 years ago) they'd done some road work and it now only took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get to Te Kaha. Elsbeth mentioned that she was going to go caving with a friend of hers at Waitomo caves, and not with any of the companies either, but just with her friend who was an experienced caver, if we were still around at the 22nd of January she said we could tag along with them if we wished. Since I had recently let Jasper in on my desire to one day go caving for real I was thrilled at this and told her I'd love to go with them and we'd do our best to be around Waitomo around that time. At Te Kaha we said goodbye to her, as she went into a small cafe to drink some coffee and we went to the side of the road to catch our next ride. As we'd put all our bags by the side of the road I noticed a fly persistently hanging around and zooming about our stuff. As I tried to shoo it off I noticed it wasn't a fly at all, it was a bee. Simultaneously me and Jasper turned to look at the bushes next to us and found that there was a bee hive right next to us with hundreds of bees swarming around it. Quickly we grabbed all our stuff and moved up a decent way along the road, occasionally running a bit to try and get rid of the bees that were now following us. When Elsbeth came out of the cafe 20 minutes later we were still standing there, so we had a chance to say goodbye to her again. Smiling, Elsbeth told us that all good things take time.
About 5 minutes later we were picked up by a big Maori guy who said he wasn't going very far but that he could us about 10km up the road; seeing as every little bit helped we accepted and he dropped us off in the middle of nowhere.
Looking at our surroundings we were desperately hoping for a ride to come soon, because getting stuck at that place could mean a bit of trouble as there was no place to pitch our tent. Luckily within 20 minutes a car stopped for us with 3 guys in it, one of them holding a wine glass. We thought that was a bit strange but dumped our bags in their bag anyway and they took us all the way to the tip of the cape. Here we quickly got picked up by two Maori women in a beat up pick-up filled with fishing gear. They said they'd take us to the top of the hill, we had no idea where this was so we said ok and dropped our stuff with the fishing gear (easier said than done). Turns out the top of the hill was about a 2 minute drive away, so it wasn't much help and we were now in fact at a much worse place than we were at before; just behind a sharp upward turn and to top it off it was starting to rain. Luckily, after about 10 minutes, a Maori couple stopped and picked us up. They were going to take us almost all the way to Te Puia Springs so it was beginning to look as if we were going to get to our destination before the day was over. They were really nice and both taught at a local high school, teaching multiple subjects.
After an hours drive we arrived at an intersection about 28km from Te Puia and it was here they dropped us off. It was starting to get a bit late (around 6 pm) and there weren't all that many cars going past, after 20 minutes we still didn't have a ride but then suddenly we heard a truck's horn and found that a truck had stopped for us even though we didn't really try to get a ride from him (they usually don't have enough space). He drove small rocks from the quarry to the forest where they used them to create roads for the logging trucks. He was going to drop us in Te Puia Springs but had to get a load of stones first, so we went with him to the quarry where they loaded his two trailers with stones and then back to the road and off to Te Puia. He took our number and said he'd send us a text when he was back home in Gisborne so that maybe we could stay at his place, but we never heard from him again. In Te Puia Jasper phoned Teah's parents to tell em we were in town to pick up the phone, but they didn't answer. After debating on what to do for a while Jasper went into the petrol station to ask where they lived (we had their address) but apparently when they tried to call again they got through, Teah's mom said she was busy that evening so that they unfortunately didn't have any time for us, but that the next morning they'd have plenty of time. We were a bit distressed about this because there wasn't any budget accommodation in Te Puia, and after a few minutes Jasper decided to call again and ask if it really wasn't possible for us to come pick up the phone quickly and explained that it would be hard for us to travel to the next town and back again just for the phone. At this point she said she'd be able to give us the phone quickly, and after a few minutes she turned up in her car, with her being a big hyper-active dog who climbed all over me when I sat in the back. We picked up the phone and afterwards she offered to take us to Tokomaru Bay where there was more accommodation for backpackers, we accepted and soon found ourselves at a hostel called Brian's place. It was a nice hostel on top of a hill, overlooking the ocean. It was fairly expensive but we didn't really mind because it was only for one night. We slept on mattresses on the loft, but we didn't mind it was nicer than your standard dorm room and we had the entire hostel to ourselves, with the exception of a Swiss girl who stayed there to take care of the place. Brian himself only dropped by twice a day to check up on things. Our lovely dinner consisted of spaghetti and tomato sauce, we didn't bring any meat or vegetables in case we got stranded without a fridge. It was plain, but warm, and it filled our bellies. The next morning we found the owner, Brian, talking to the Swiss girl and we soon entered the conversation as well. As the conversation was reaching its end and Brian was about to say goodbye he sudden exclaimed something while pointing towards the sea. I didn't quite hear what he said and when I looked at where he pointed I saw nothing. When I asked what he said he replied "Didn't you see the dolphins?", and after that he told us to get in his van and he'd drive us all over to the beach to get a better look. His van didn't have any backseats though, so we just had to crouch and hang on the steels bars; it wasn't very comfortable but who cares when you have the chance to see dolphins. When we got to the beach we were all looking around to try and find them, but we saw nothing. We were worried that they might have swum on, but just then we saw a fin break the water and soon after 2 more fins. Quickly we raced to the edge of the water and got our cameras ready, but it proved to be a challenge indeed to get them on camera, in the end the best we managed were a few shots of the sea with a small black speck that is supposed to be a fin. The sight was amazing though, there were at least 4 of them and they hung around at the beach for at least 30 minutes. Eventually we gave up on taking pictures and Brian took us back to the hostel. The very second we had all our stuff packed up the sky opened up and a monsoon descended on us. When we looked out of the windows all we saw was clear blue sky in every direction, the rain cloud was directly above our heads, and only above our heads. It took 15 minutes for the rain to stop and we could move on again. After a short walk down to the main road we positioned ourselves opposite a small shop at the end of a bridge. Only 3 minutes had passed before a car signalled it was pulling over, unfortunately the car was pulling over to visit the shop. To our frustration this happened at least a dozen times before two guys finally pulled over for us. They worked at a car dealer and were just coming back from delivering a car to a customer and were on their way back to Gisborne. Because their boss paid them for the drive as well, they were in no hurry at all to get back to proper working and offered to drop us off right at the entrance to the campsite. My lonely planet said the price of a tent site there was about $22 so we were unsure if we were going to stay there or not, but when we asked how much it was we found that it was in fact only $14 per person, which is really cheap. After setting up our tent we headed out into town to find some lunch, an i-site and food for that night. Lunch was found at the Pizza Hut where we ordered a combination of 4 pizzas, which was supposed to feed about 3-4 people but should be barely enough for us two. Or so we thought, the pizza was so filling that I couldn't eat my half fully and had to leave about 1-2 bites to be thrown away, much to my dismay. Feeling like we could hardly move from eating too much we set out to find the i-site, and after walking down the entire street we were at first told it was in we couldn't find anything. Thinking we must have probably missed it we walked back, but after about 10 minutes we still hadn't found it so we asked someone on the street who replied "You see that sign that says i-center? It's right there." Of course it is. Turns out it was directly opposite the Pizza Hut. Here we picked up some flyers on surf lessons and read some interesting stuff about a dolphin named Moko that's been hanging around Gisborne's beaches the last few months. After this we did some grocery shopping and went back to our tent. We called up one of the surf schools but didn't get any answer so we tried the mobile number, this time we got a dude on the phone who sounded a bit uninterested and when I said we'd like to book surf lessons for the next day he said he'd call us back that night to confirm. We spent the rest of the night in the lounge reading and working on our blog entries, the pizza from that afternoon still laid on our stomachs so heavily that we didn't even bother to make dinner and just ate 2 slices of bread to at least get some fibres in our body. We still hadn't heard anything from the surf guy so Jasper decided to give him a ring, he said he didn't have time for the lessons the next day but it would be possible to do it the day after. The following morning we took our time and since we had nothing to do that day we decided to just hang out on the beach. As we were sitting there reading our books and occasionally going in the ocean for a little swim in the ice-cold water I suddenly saw a large group of people gathered in the water and just then I heard someone say that it must be the dolphin. I wasted no time and rushed over there straight away and sure enough I saw a dolphin surfacing every now and then, only about 5 meters out to sea. There must have been around 30 people standing around it, most of them kids, as Moko (the dolphin) was playing with some girls body board. There seemed to be only one man really dared to get close to Moko, the rest was a bit scared because Moko was a large dolphin and immensely strong. Because of this I had the chance to play with Moko and for quite a long time too. The game we played didn't seem like much of a game to me but Moko seemed to enjoy it, and I think when it comes to playing games with dolphins it doesn't really matter what kind of game you play. He'd want you to grab the ankle strap of the body-board and gently pull the board along while Moko was waiting underwater, he'd then suddenly rise up and knock the board up with such force that he knocked the strap out of your hand too, he'd then bring it back to you and hand you the strap with its snout. After a while some other guy came to see the dolphin and he was trying to take the board, Moko obviously didn't like this and was starting to squeak and click more and more, his movements were becoming wilder and more aggressive as well. I decided this was a good time to head back to Jasper who stayed on the beach because he didn't want to swim with Moko for some reason.
The rest of the day we just hung around and that evening we used up the last of the supplies we bought in case we got stuck on the East Cape; rice with baked beans and frankfurter sausages, quite nice actually. The following morning we woke up early for our appointment with Magoo our surf instructor, we were going to have 1.5 hours of surf lessons and half a day at a place called Rehe Rockslide. He was 30 minutes late, but we didn't care too much, he looked like a surfer grown old with long blond hair despite the fact that he was balding and for some reason he ended every sentence with "Bro", he also had a small dog with him called Giovanni. After we picked up his lunch we drove to the beach (which was actually right next to our campsite) and having arrived there Magoo determined that there was absolutely no surf, and that it'd be better if we went to the rockslide first and come back later to see if the surf had picked up. So off we went to Rehe Rockslide, which was about an hour's drive away. During the drive we found out that Magoo used to be in the top 10 of NZ's surfers during his younger days, and that he went to Italy every summer (so summer in Italy) to sell jewellery he buys in Bali, claiming to make about $40.000 in the summer months.
When we got to Rehe Rockslide Magoo seemed surprised to find only 1 other car there, usually there were a lot more so it seemed the change of plans worked in our favour. The rockslide itself was a large sloped rock, almost completely smooth and with a thin layer of water streaming over it. We were given a wetsuit and a body board, and were told to just lie on the board and slide down. If you did it right you could reach tremendous speeds before you hit the pool at the bottom. Even though the surface was very smooth (with a few exceptions) it was still solid rock and if you let your legs fall down a bit too low or if you hit a bump you weren't expecting you could really bang up your feet en legs. We raced against the other people there a few times, two guys and two girls, but they were a lot better and smoked us every time. They also had a big inflatable mattress with them which you could also use to go down on and they let us borrow it a couple of times. Magoo, even though he comes there quite often, seemed very enthusiastic about going down on the mattress so the three of us went down it multiple times, and I have to say that was a lot of fun.
Eventually, after one of the other guys accidentally slid over the mattress in the pool and launched himself, we got the idea that maybe we should hold the mattress up slightly and turn it into a ramp. And no sooner said than done we had ourselves a bonafide rockslide ramp, it required at least two people to hold it up but the airtime you could get on that thing was amazing. Eventually a lot, and I do mean a lot, more people showed up and we started to have to wait in line to go down the slide so we decided this was a good time to move on and we said goodbye to the other guys. I was pretty glad we were moving one, because one of my knees had swollen to twice the size of my other knee and I had cuts and bruises all over my legs and feet. We stopped by some champagne pools, as they were apparently called, to have our lunch. The pools were basically just natural circular pools, but they looked very pretty. Unfortunately there were a lot of drunk youths sitting around there as well, so we didn't really get much of a quiet lunch. When we were in the car and driving back to Gisborne Jasper asked "where's the dog?" and a distinct "Oh crap" expression appeared on Magoo's face and with screeching tires he turned the van around. When we got back to the pool we picked up the dog and were on our way to Gisborne again.
In Gisborne Magoo asked if we maybe wanted to get some ice-cream before surfing, and we though that was a silly thing to ask; of course we want to buy some ice-cream! The ice-cream was really nice, but unfortunately the surf wasn't, there were some waves there but Magoo concluded we'd be wasting our time if we tried to surf those. Instead he said he'd give us some instructions on dry land and he'd let us have the boards for free the next day so we could practice all day. The next day we woke up early (9am) and headed out to the beach. There was some kind of school competition going on so we were forced to walk further up the beach, but it was a lot quieter there anyway so we didn't have to worry about surfing into other people. At first there didn't seem to be that many good waves, but every once in a while a good big wave would come along which we tried to catch. The first few times neither of us managed to stand up, the boards we had now were a lot smaller than the ones we had in Raglan or even the ones Magoo gave us instructions on and therefore harder to stand up on, but after a while Jasper managed to stand up and I followed soon after. It wasn't long before both of us were standing up fairly regularly and were managing to ride to waves for longer than 5 seconds. Suddenly we saw Moko with some surfers a bit to the right of us and we decided to paddle our way over. When we got there we found that Moko had a new fun game, called "Knock the surfers off their board" and he decided to make me an active participant. He swam next to me and at first gently nudged my board, when I didn't fall off he tried harder and harder. I was hanging on for dear life because I was afraid he was going to try and steal my board even though I was still attached to it, but eventually he managed to knock me off. Fortunately he didn't try to steal my board and simply went on to knock his next victim off his board, it was actually quite funny to see him go around knocking all the surfers off their boards. We then went for some quick lunch before we came back to surf some more. We were really getting the hang of it and standing up was getting easy and we managed to ride our waves longer and longer. When we had enough we headed back to the campsite and stayed at the lounge for a while.
By then my foot was starting to ache really bad and I went to put a band aid on it, it was then that I suddenly realised I couldn't find my toiletry bag with my contact lenses as well as my toothbrush etc. in it. I had probably forgotten it in the toilet block that morning when I went to put on my swimming trunks, but when I looked there it was nowhere to be found. I went to ask at the reception to see if they had perhaps found it, but unfortunately they hadn't. I was starting to panic a bit, because I really didn't feel like forking over a few hundred dollars to buy new contacts, so I wrote a note saying I lost my bag and if the person that found it could please give me a call on my cell phone and stuck it on the door to the men's room. When I went to the bathroom an hour two later I found that the note was gone, I asked the reception for permission before I posted it so I knew it wasn't them and figured someone was being a jerk (I didn't receive any calls or texts) and I made another note. When I went to brush my teeth that night I found that the note was gone again, and still I received no calls. A bit depressed I figured whoever took my bag wanted to keep it to themselves for some strange reason and conceded to having to buy new lenses along with everything else. That night a wound on the sole of my foot was aching particularly badly, it was obviously infected and my whole foot felt sore. I laid awake for hours while the throbbing got worse and I started to hope it wasn't some horrible flesh eating virus. I could already hear the doctor; "I'm sorry, but we're going to have to amputate your foot." "Not my foot Doc! You might as well cut off my leg!" "I'm sorry son, but there's no way we can save it".
But after about 2 or 3 hours the throbbing started to subside a bit and instead of the heat that accompanied the throbbing I now felt a warmth around the area where the wound was. I realised the worst was over and I finally fell asleep. The next day we planned to go into town and replace all my lost items and get something for my infected foot. When I woke up and looked at my phone however I saw that I had one missed call, and when I listened to my voice-mail I found that it was the reception and that someone had turned in my toiletry bag! I was very relieved to find that everything was still inside it and I wouldn't have to replace anything. The rest of the day we rested, mainly for my foot but also a bit because we had nothing more to do. The next day we headed out for Napier, after a gruelling walk through town in the burning sun we finally arrived at what seemed to be a good spot for hitch-hiking. It wasn't long however before were driving past yelling at us that we should go further down the road a bit more, so eventually we decided they were probably right and walked a bit further. Here we were picked up by a lady and her 3 year old son, she wasn't going to Napier but she took us to the exit that way which was a huge help. From there we got a ride from an old man in a pick-up truck who would take us all the way to Napier. He turned out to be a really nice guy and we talked pretty much the whole way there. He turned out to drive a motorbike, one of those Japanese road bikes, and he loved to race it down the South Island which seemed a bit strange for an older man but we thought was awesome. He also stopped by an ice-cream shop along the way and bought us and himself some ice-cream. He said that that was one of the best places in New Zealand for ice-cream, and when he ordered a 1 scoop ice-cream and got 3 scoops instead I could see what he meant. I couldn't imagine how big a 2 scooper must have been. He dropped us off at the local holiday park and said goodbye. While we were at the reception to book our stay we also booked a trip to the aquarium, where it was apparently possible to dive in the big tank to feed and swim with the sharks. For dinner we had some take away from the on-site restaurant and the burgers were surprisingly good, though the fries were, as usual, not very good.
While we were reading in the lounge Jasper received a phone call form the reception that the guy who had picked us up had called to say we left something in his truck. As we were thinking of what we could have possibly forgotten in his truck we walked to the reception to get his number. I called him as soon as we got his number and when I asked what we'd forgotten he replied "What you left in my truck was an invitation to our Christmas dinner", apparently he had told his wife about the two guys he picked up and how they were celebrating Christmas all alone far away from home, at which point his wife told him to call us up and invite us over for Christmas. We were both pretty excited about this and though it was also a bit scary to have to meet some stranger's family we were happy we were going to have at least something of a proper Christmas.
The next day we went to the Aquarium and as we were standing outside the campsite trying to determine which way we had to walk a car stopped next to us as it was exiting the park. "Are you going to city centre?" the woman behind the wheel asked, and when we replied that we were going to the aquarium she simply said "Hop in". We now arrived at the aquarium way too early but this gave us the opportunity to look around a bit first. The main attractions were the kiwi house where we could see a live kiwi, unfortunately kiwis are nocturnal and you couldn't use flash so I didn't manage to get a good picture of it, and also the big tank with the sharks in it. At first the fish in the big tank didn't seem to be too impressive, sure the fish were big but the sharks weren't. It wasn't until my second round through the aquarium that I spotted the big shark in the back, he was about 3 meters long, had a huge mouth and we were going to swim with him. At 1 pm we geared up because we were a bit early we were allowed to snorkel through the tank first, so we could get a feel as to what swimming with sharks was about. The sharks were quite shy though, so during the snorkelling we didn't see too much of them. When it was time to feed the fish me and Jasper swam to the right spot with a bucket in our hands and descended to the bottom of the aquarium. The fish were swarming around us with huge kingfish and snapper impatiently trying to grab the pieces of fish out of our hands. The stingrays kept trying to eat our flippers, so we soon fed them some fish as well. The trick was to lay the fish on your hand and keep your hand flat while he swims over it and grabs it with its mouth. You had to be careful he didn't eat your finger though, because they had sharp teeth. Unfortunately the sharks didn't seem to be very hungry and only some of the smaller ones came around to steal some fish.
After the food was gone we were allowed to swim around in the aquarium, and this time the sharks came a lot closer, it was quite scary to see the big shark swimming right towards you, only to turn around at the last second. When we'd swam a few circles around the tank and were starting to feel a bit like goldfish, we began to look at the people walking through the tunnel that passed under the tank; especially the little kids were funny to look at as their mouths were always wide open in disbelief that there was someone in the water with the sharks. When we got cold and bored we decided to head back out again. It was a lovely experience and it looks hilarious in our dive logs, so well worth the money.

The next day we did our laundry in an attempt to have some half decent clothes for our Christmas dinner.

it seems I forgot to post the link to this gallery, they're older photo's mainly of our canyon trip. http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%2027%20November/

Rollin. . .

Have you ever felt like you a hamster? Does the sight of wood make your front teeth tingle with delight? Do you sleep in small burrows and store food in your cheeks? Then listen to this!
Those crazy Kiwis have invented Hamster Balls for Men© , also known as Zorbs© . Do not miss your chance to roll down a hill in huge plastic ball and experience for yourself what hamsters have been experiencing for the last hundred years! (Disclaimer: this number is a rough estimation, not a fact) Squeak with delight as experienced Zorb handlers push you down a hill!
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We awoke, unexpectedly, with only slight muscle ache and were feeling fresh and ready for the day! The plan was to go Zorbing and visit the local mud geysers, but when we arrived at the bus stop we found that the busses only go till 3 O'clock and we’d spent so long talking to people during breakfast that we would have only had 1 hour to Zorb before the last bus would come to pick us up. We reckoned this was a bit too tight for comfort and we didn’t want to feel rushed (not to mention that the thought of being stranded in the middle of nowhere wasn’t particularly appealing to us) so we decided we’d go the next day. Having decided this, it took us a long time to figure out what we’d do instead, we ended up spending half a day in an internet cafe and the rest in the cinema. We went to see a movie called Zombie Land, which is quite a fun movie if you like macabre humour and unnecessary violence against the undead, which we do.
The next day we caught the bus and set off to Zorb© . We had a choice between a wet Zorb, and a dry one. The wet one involved being rolled down a hill in one of those big hamster balls after they let a bit of water in it, so that when you slip you don’t go tumbling through the ball but get a more waterslide-like experience. The dry one involved getting strapped inside the ball tightly so you can’t move while they kick the ball down the hill and you lose all sense of up and down.
We decided the wet Zorb was for pansies and did the dry Zorb, despite Jasper feeling slightly nauseous. After strapping myself in they removed the gate that was keeping the ball in place and slowly it started to roll down the hill. Slowly but surely the ground was coming towards me as I started my first revolution, my body started to feel heavy in the straps and before I knew it I was upside down. The ground slowly traded places with the sky once more and after that they merged into one big blur as I lost track of what was up and what was down. I could feel the ball gaining speed and eventually it started to develop a small bounce as well. Unfortunately the whole experience was over too quick and soon I exited the ball and walked back to the side in a more or less straight line. Even though at 40 bucks the 30 second ride was a bit of a rip-off, it was an interesting experience that I wouldn't want to miss for anything.
Afterwards we went back to our hostel and booked our trip to the shire (aka Matamata).
We got picked up the following morning and arrived at hobbiton tours (and sheep farming experience), here we were shipped onto a big bus full of other Lord of the Rings tourists and driven through a country filled with rolling green hills and lots of sheep. Lots of sheep. The girl behind the wheel of the bus gave us some background information on the countryside and pointed out places where certain scenes were filmed. "This is where Frodo stood when Gandalf arrived on his cart, and there way off in the distance is where he jumped down to to reach Gandalf, so Frodo had quite a mighty jump".
When we arrived at hobbiton they let us out the bus and allowed us to walk around freely. The main attraction here were hobbit holes that were still more or less intact, due to copyright issues they weren't allowed to be completely intact, they consisted of white plywood outlines of the hobbit holes scattered across the hill. There was nothing behind their little doors as obviously all the inside scenes were filmed in a studio, but to us LotR nerds it was a lot of fun to be there.
We soon found out though that as far as being a LotR nerd goes, we were newbs. As the people around us were discussing what other movie sites they visited, who got tattoos of the tree of Gondor and why one of them named her son Elijah we felt sort of out of place, we were too normal to fit in. Turns out we were in luck, because as we were walking through the hobbit holes we noticed a guy on top of the hill putting flowers in the garden of bag end. Turns out they are going to be filming for the Hobbit soon and they were fixing up bag end for a promotional photo shoot of some sort. After the tour they took us to a small barn and showed us how they sheered sheep. Afterwards we were all handed a bottle of milk and told to go outside. All of a sudden about 12 baby sheep ran passed us desperately trying to grab the milk bottle from our hands. Jasper didn't want to, but they were so cute that I couldn't resist feeding them and petting them as they greedily downed the bottle of milk.
When we got back to the van our driver got us some lunches that his mother prepared for us, I thought this was really thought of her and gratefully ate the small cake that was in the bag.
The next day we made our biggest sign yet and were headed for Whakatane, as we walked out of the hostel we were accompanied for a small while by an American guy we met there who was covered in tattoos from back when he was in a speed metal band. He was a really nice guy, though sometimes a bit strange, so it was nice of him to walk with us at least to the point where he had to wait for the bus.
While we were standing at the edge of town with our massive sign (I could hardly open it fully because my arms were a tad too short) and after a while we got picked up by a guy who promised to take us to the exit to Whakatane where we'd have no problems getting a ride.
And sure enough, after a few minutes a lady stops for us and tells us she's not going all the way to Whakatane but can get us halfway if we want. As we accepted her offer I noticed she had an accent so I asked her where she was from, though I had a sneaky suspicion I already knew.
She said she was Dutch.

http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%2013%20December/

Raindrops keep falling on my head

We left sunny Raglan. We left sunny Raglan as the rain was pouring down in us in endless streams. As we dragged our sorry asses through town, the water drenching our bags and ourselves to the core, a man pulled over for us. His car was flashy and so was he. As he played his music too loud he described to us his get up and go lifestyle, he spewed his hallmark wisdom on modern society all over us "Anything is possible if set your mind on it". It was his car that kept us dry, and his foot on the peddle that kept us going, so we smiled and agreed. We emerged from his self-made world into the rain at an exit not far from Waitomo Caves. It was obvious that we were going to get wet one way or another. We put our bags under bushes and cars to keep them as dry as possible, which meant that they were wet. Just wet and under cars and bushes, but it soothed our minds that we at least tried to keep them dry. Soon after our bags were as wet as they were going to get we got picked up and were driven to Waitomo Caves, Population: 47, amount of shops: 0. The price for a piece of ground to put your tent on was ridiculous and we decided to keep our stay short and sweet. I read about an organisation called Absolute Adventures, which does the more extreme cave journeys and was hoping to experience some serious spelunking. But, like the shop and probably some other businesses in town, they had gone bankrupt and no longer existed. WWe settled on a more touristy one instead.
We woke up and shut down the alarm. We woke up again and were in a hurry. We swallowed a loaf of bread and briefly touched our teeth with some toothpaste. As we ran up to our transport our driver had gone looking for us and was getting impatient.
After we signed a document agreeing that if we died or were seriously hurt we wouldn't be able to sue them for it. Seeing as dead people can't sue nobody I was okay with that.
We geared up and after a short introductory course to abseiling were sent down to the bottom of the caves. Jasper went down first and when he disappeared out of sight the rope kept jerking up and down, as if horrible creatures from the depth were feasting on his dangling body. After the rope stopped jerking the guide signalled for the next person to step forward. Three other people had gone down before it was my turn. As they booted me off the platform I slowly spun my way down into the mouth of the cave. The hole got progressively narrower and it wasn't long before I had to squeeze my way through. With some precise manoeuvring I managed to get through and entered the first chamber of the cave. The face of the wall was wet and slippery so I balanced myself with my knees as I lowered myself in. Upon reaching the floor of the cave Lyam congratulated me on making it down alive and told me to sit with the others. Jasper told me he found something interesting in a small side chamber and as he led me there, he pointed out a pile of bones lying on the ground. They were the remains of sheep dumb or unfortunate enough to fall into the cave. The dumb cows were more fortunate; they were too big to fit through the hole and got stuck in it rather than plummet to their deaths. Sometimes it pays to be big.
After we were all down we moved to our next descent, a flying fox. As we zipped down the line one by one everyone turned off their lights to give the ride an extra dimension. Jasper was the first to go down in absolute darkness and I followed him shortly after. We were sitting there at the bottom, waiting while one of the girls was coming down. As she reached the bottom of the line we suddenly heard an immense bang, for a second we were afraid the line had snapped, but it turned out that Lyam had thrown a bag down into the water to pick up later. They fed us some hot chocolate and a piece of cake and informed us we were to jump down off the ledge into the water below, making sure we landed on a tube they were going to provide us. Tom showed us how to do it, holding the tube under his butt he jumped down and as he contacted the water an explosion reverberated through the cave. It sounded like they fired a cannon right next to my ear, but apparently that sound was normal, and so I jumped after him. The water was cold, despite the wetsuits and manoeuvring while sitting in the tube was hard work. Luckily there was a rope fixed to the side of the cave which we could use to pull ourselves along. After some bad jokes about eels (one of the girls was terrified of the eels that live there) we made it to the end of the passage. Here we formed a big chain by putting our feet on the tube of the person in front of us and Lyam pulled us back in total darkness. Or, it would have been total darkness if it wasn’t for the massive amount of glow worms attached to the roof of the cave, forming amazing constellations and providing ample light for Lyam to see where he was going.
After we got back to our starting point we abandoned our tubes and continued on foot, sometimes wading through knee-high water, sometimes swimming. After what didn’t seem that long a fork in the road, here they offered us a choice one path was called the “Path of Tranquillity” and the other the “Path of Doom”, one was a nice walk back to the surface and the other was a free climb up two waterfalls which would also end up back at the surface. After some careful deliberation we chose the more sensible path, the Path of Doom. Even though we had helmets on, and Lyam and Tom were going to give us very accurate instructions on where to put our hands and feet on the way up, there was a very real danger of falling down a few meters and at the very least breaking something. With this in mind we headed for the falls and one by one started making our way up. When it was my turn I quickly found out that waterfalls are loud, very loud. It was hard to hear what Tom was saying while I was still at the bottom, let alone when I was halfway up the waterfall. Despite this I, like all the others, made my way safely up both waterfalls to emerge triumphantly at the surface, where a clear blue sky and a bright sun were waiting for us. It seemed that we had spent the one good day we were going to have all week inside a cold and dark cave, typical.
We spent the remainder of the day in the pool and hot pool of our Holiday Park, feeling we were at least getting the most out of our expensive stay. We dined at local bar for not a lot of money at all and spent the entire night lying awake wondering why the hell the cows were making so much noise.
The next morning was filled with sounds of water hitting tent cloth and as we zipped open our tent it was as if someone pulled a grey veil over the world. We packed up our stuff and our tent as fast as we could, trying to keep them as dry as possible, with little success. After we had breakfast and asked the girl behind the reception for a cardboard box for our sign we headed off to a good place to hitch-hike. Fortunately for us, this was right outside our Holiday Park, unfortunately for us it was now raining even harder and there were no cars coming past. As we slowly watched our bags getting wetter and wetter someone finally pulled over for us, he wasn’t going where we wanted to go but promised to at least take us to the high-way. Unfortunately his car was one of those transport trucks where the trunk is uncovered, so our bags got wetter still. By the time he dropped us off our bags were soaked and our signs were falling apart from the rain. Even though our sign was hardly readable from up close we tried to use it for a while to no avail, eventually throwing it away and just using our thumbs. Soon after, much to our relief, a car stopped for us and we quickly put our bags in the trunk. Or well, that was the plan but the trunk was already pretty full so we first had to rearrange her belongings before we could try to fit our stuff in. Jasper ended up with half our stuff on our laps, leaving him vulnerable to be licked by the two puppies the girl had with her. The girl behind the wheel told us we were lucky, she had been going in the wrong direction for the last hour and to not make her trip entirely useless she decided to pick us up. She was on the way to pick up an automatic rocking bed for her baby when she completely missed her exit and ended up in the next town. She was going to drop us off in Hamilton, where she lived, from where we would hopefully be able to find a ride to Rotorua.
After we talked for a while she eventually offered us a stay in her house so that we could dry up and maybe continue the next day with better weather, we gratefully accepted. Even though we found it a bit strange to stay in a stranger’s house, she obviously had no problems with it and trusted us completely; at one point even leaving us alone in the house for about 30 minutes.
The next day she dropped us off on the road to Rotorua, just out of Hamilton and said goodbye, it wasn't long before we were picked up and were heading for Rotorua.
As it was still raining we didn't do much more than arrange a rafting trip for the next day and buy our groceries. We booked a longer, though less extreme, rafting trip and were lucky we were able to do it because they need 4 customers to be able to do that trip and it wasn't till later that day that a Japanese couple signed up.
When we got picked up the next day by our guide (called Tim), the first thing he asked us was why we were doing the easy river and not big one. We replied that we didn't really know there was that much of a difference and almost immediately made up our minds to do the other river as well, good bit of advertising by our guide there. We picked up the Japanese couple and headed for the river, which was about an hour away. After suiting up and some basic instructions to rafting (what to do when it flips over and such) we pushed the raft into the water and jumped in. The first few rapid were fun but nothing to be worried about, the 2nd set of rapids was one of the bigger ones on the trip and if we fell out there it could become dangerous as people had died there, or so we were told. We, however, survived those and though we crashed into some rocks a few times the overall experience was smooth. Soon after the 3rd set of rapids, the biggest ones on our trip, we hit a rock that I didn't see, and was unprepared for. I fell backwards and the foot that I was supposed to keep myself in the raft with slipped out of its strap, causing me to fall out of the raft completely. For some reason however the water seems a lot calmer when you're actually in it, probably because you are too low in the water to see the scary stuff. They pulled me back in the raft and we continued as if nothing happened. After a few more rapids we had a little swim in a quiet part of the river, the cold water was extremely refreshing which was good because even though it had been raining the whole time it was extremely hot in our wetsuits. After we all climbed back in the raft the Japanese trainee that was with us wanted to give a shot at being the steersman. It wasn't long after that we ran into a tree that had fallen into the river, completely blocking our way. It was evident by the slightly panicky tone in Tim's voice as he shouted at our steersman in training where to go, that he wasn't expecting that. Nevertheless we made it over the tree in a way that can almost be described as controlled, and soon after we reached the end of the trip.
While they drove us back we informed Tim that we'd be back the next day for the Kaituna River. Back in the hostel we made dinner, and crashed on our beds.
The next day Tim was waiting for us again and after we picked up a few other people we headed to their headquarters, close to the start of the Kaituna River. We suited up, had our little instruction again and headed for the river. We walked down a small path to the river as they launched our raft into the water a bit upstream. The plan was that one of the guys would grab the raft, hold on to it and let the rest climb into it. What actually happened was: one guy grabbed the raft, but let it drift too far out into the river, allowing the currents to get hold of it, Tim then screaming for everyone to get in the boat and us making a mad dash to get into it before it would be too far into the river. As we were the first raft in the water we had to wait for the other raft and had some time to practice paddling and steering. One of the instructions was for us all to go to one side of the raft if we were about to crash into a rock sideways, and we practiced this as well. When you have 7 guys on one side of a raft however it begins to tip over, which was evidently what Tim had in mind, and as a reflex one of the guys pulled back, his weight causing the raft to straighten out. Punishment was swift and just as Tim pushed the guy out of the raft into the water, the look on the guy's face was priceless. We headed out as soon as the other raft reached us and at the very first set of rapids I managed to almost get knock out of the raft, again. This time, even though my entire body was underwater, I managed to keep my foot in the strap and pull myself back into the boat. After a few fun rapids we arrived a point with relatively calm water and Tim told us to jump in the water off the front of the boat. The guy at the front kept looking back as if he couldn't believe he was actually supposed to jump in the water, because he took so long to jump there were still 3 of us left in the raft by the time the other raft reached us and Tim yelled at us to just jump off the side instead. The other guys started to make a mad dash down the river, competing as to whom could get to the other raft the fastest, when Tim suddenly yelled at them to come back to the raft quickly. It turned out that that just ahead was a pretty big rapid and when the guys saw this they desperately swam back to the raft, only 3 of the 4 made it back in the time. The last guy wasn't the best swimmer so couldn't get back in time and Tim yelled laughing that he was going to have to swim the rapid. At that point I was glad I managed to get back in time, but in retrospect it would have been fun to swim down a rapid, though the guy that did it did not agree with me on that point.
A few rapids later we were again told to jump in the water and as I was looking forward to a refreshing swim I immediately jumped in; the rest of the guys followed swiftly. All of them, except for one. Jasper. As we climbed back in the raft he sat there and with a smug smile exclaimed that he was happy to still be dry. At this point Tim yelled at us to push him into the water, I happily obliged and Jasper was soon splashing about in the cold river. The rest of the trip was filled with Tim steering us into rocks and back into waterfalls and soon (too soon) the trip was over again and we headed back to our Hostel.
The day after it was still raining and because we didn’t want to stay in Rotorua forever we decided to just go Luging, which is racing down an asphalt road off a hill in a small skelter like cart, take the chairlift back up and do it again. Because it was so rainy that day the place was deserted and we had the place almost to ourselves. We had a total of 5 rides and almost every run one of us crashed our cart and ended up in the mud. Every time our chair reached the top of the hill the operator was surprised at how much extra dirt we had managed to gather. In the final run Jasper managed to crash in the final corner, he was going so fast that he actually got launched cleanly out of his cart and made a face plant in the mud. I saw him as he walked back towards his cart and laughed so hard I crashed my cart as well (though not quite as hard as Jasper). While we were sitting there in the chairlift, Jasper’s entire left side covered in mud, he kept asking me how bad the mud on his face was and every single time I replied that it wasn’t too bad and every single time I burst into laughter (though it really wasn’t that bad).
After this we decided that was enough or one day and headed back to our Hostel.
The next day it was finally good weather and we decided we'd go Mountain Biking, the bike rental shop was in the centre of town and from there it was about 20 minutes riding to the Redwoods. We managed to get confused on where to go on the way there once, my fault, but despite that we made it to the tracks. After the first 5 minutes we spent in the actual forest I was already gasping for air and a mist of blackness was slowly clouding my vision. We spent a few minutes catching our breath before we continued in lowest gear and crawled our way up the non-relenting hill. Little did we know then, but it would take us just over 2 hours to get to the top and there was nothing funny about the steep road up there; except maybe for our futile attempts to ride all the way up rather than walk.
We had a detailed map of the hill, and all the tracks were clearly marked, it was all remarkably well maintained. Of course this meant that we got lost along the way but I have the sneaky suspicion this actually saved us a hard climb up along a grade 3 track. The first Track on our way down was called Billy-T, it was a grade 4 track (grade 5 being national championship difficulty) and it was madness. After a gentle dip the track soon turned into a highway to hell, with ridiculously steep curved descents, half meter drops one after the other and tree roots sticking out up to a foot high. Because we were cheap we rented MTB’s with no rear suspension (half the price of those with) and had to take all the blows with our legs. I stopped after a few minutes to wait for Jasper and found my legs were trembling from the adrenaline and sheer effort. When Jasper caught up we looked at each other with mouths open and eyes wide, unable to speak but our expressions saying enough. After a minute I raced onwards down the hill, at a few points trying to stop before I crashed. Unfortunately my seat was a bit too high, and every time I tried to stop, my feet didn’t reach the ground and the bike slowly rode out from underneath me, dragging me down with it. But, despite these rather embarrassing crashes I managed to stay on my bike down the ridiculous dips and curves through the muddy and slippery forest. We only had 2 more hours left before the rental shop closed and we had to really hurry if we were to get there in time, so we raced down the hill, never stopping for more than a minute. As we raced down a grade 3 track I suddenly found myself completely airborne, turns out that hill I took was actually a ramp, and afterwards facing an almost vertical drop. After the drop I braked hard to take the upcoming turn, only to be confronted with another ridiculous drop, it wasn’t until I reached an easier part of the track and went down a shallow drop that my bike slipped out underneath me and sent me crashing into a tree headfirst. Good thing I had a helmet on and didn’t feel a thing.
Because we were starting to run out of time and energy we drove along the main road for the last part, and though it didn’t provide any thrills as far as steep dips or scary curves the sheer speed you could build up there provided us with enough adrenaline.
On the way back we passed through a park filled with sulphur geysers and the smell of it, combined with our fatigue and empty stomach almost caused me to vomit, so despite our sore butts from lack of suspension we raced through there and arrived back at the shop 5 minutes before it closed.