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.