September 24 - September 27: New Zealand!!

Ok! Here are my New Zealand adventures! This post is one part of the trip. I will post the next one up soon I just need to add photos to it. Enjoy!

I wouldn't say our trip started off in the most glamorous way. Waking up at 5:45 a.m. and having barely 5 hours of sleep to eating hamburgers at 9 am for breakfast on the ground of the Sydney airport terminal. 

When we landed in Auckland it was raining and did not let up. We took a bus into the city and had to wander the streets in the rain to find our hostel. 

After getting settled in our hostel we went out to get a bite to eat because it was around 5 p.m. and we hadn't eaten much. We found a Domino's and after sharing a pizza we decided to treat ourselves and go to a steakhouse for dinner. Probably not the best steak I have ever had, but it was so good because we hadn't had a real meat meal for weeks. 

After dinner we walked around a building that had an arcade, restaurants, and other activities. We had a beer at a bar and went to go see Sausage Party. I know how this sounds so lame, but New Zealand is an active country where you go hiking, biking, bungee jumping, etc. Since it was raining we couldn't do any of that stuff. 

After the movie we walked back to the hostel to figure out if we needed bus tickets for our buses we were going to take. As Ryan was checking his confirmation email he found an email saying that our bus from the Waitomo Glowworm Caves back to Rotorua was cancelled. We sat there for a little trying to figure out what to do but we realized we couldn't do anything so we just went to bed. 

Sunday September 25

We woke up got ready for the day and then immediately started working on our situation. This was a huge problem because we were supposed to go to Rotorua the next day and then the day after go take a day trip to the caves via bus. Due to the rain the bus company we booked through had canceled our bus trips. Everything we looked at was a dead end all other buses either left too late, were full, or left two days later. We looked at leaving Auckland that day, renting a car, and other options but could not find anything. We realized that we were going to have to spend one night in Waitomo and Ryan came up with the idea of taking a bus to Waitomo and leaving Tuesday after our tour. Sounds like a simple answer, but we sat around and made calls for about three hours before coming up with a solution. 

After figuring everything out we got lunch at Nandos and walked to the Auckland Museum. The museum was in the middle of a park so we had to walk through pretty park. The museum was nice because it was raining all day so we were able to go inside and stay somewhat dry. The museum had a floor on the Maori tribes in New Zealand which I really enjoyed because their art was Polynesian, intricate, and colorful. The second story was in New Zealand's wildlife from plants, animals, and geological features such as volcanoes. 

We walked through a park on the way to the museum.

I did not realize that the Maoris are considered Polynesian until I saw their art and learned a little about their history at the museum.

A little crooked, but I am always looking up at ceilings!

After the museum we walked back into town bought groceries because we heard that there are no grocery stores in Waitomo and then headed off to a Korean restaurant near our hostel. 

After dinner we had a couple drinks and went off to an arcade because there was nothing else to do...once again. 

Monday September 26

We woke up and hopped on a bus to Otorohanga and had a taxi driver pick us up there because we were either walking 9 miles or getting a ride to the caves. The cabbie dropped us off at our hostel and we walked into reception. 

When we booked the hostel we figured a private double room meant price room for two people with two singles.....we got to our room and found out it meant one double bed... nothing we can do at this point. 

We fixed ourselves some lunch (which was PB&J from stuff we had bought the day before and apples and bananas) then went out for a hike. 

We went out to a small section which was very cool because it was the bush, but New Zealand style which looked way greener than Australia but tropical. It consists of large trees and rocks to climb on with ferns everywhere.

We hiked around in a farm taking photos and then continued our hike. Since it had been raining everything was extremely muddy. Ryan was wearing his combat boots, but I was not as well equipped and there were multiple parts where he had to help me find a somewhat not as muddy path to get through. As we were walking through the fields I realized how muddy I was getting so we decided to turn around clean off and make dinner. 

Some of the rocks had some weird and what I thought to be photogenic cracks

We went a little of the beaten path at one point only to have to turn around.

We hike through some farms and had to dodge cow pies.

Yea.....I struggled to find a way around this wtihout my shoes sinking.

My shoes post-hike.

When we got back to our hostel we were cleaning off our shoes with a hose I looked around and realized the lack of people and cars around. I thought back to when we first arrived and looking at the rooms the maid had just cleaned and there was no one in them or any belongings. As we got back to our room Ryan and I started to realize we were the only ones staying at the hostel. 

We made a fancy meal of instant noodles for dinner and found the lounge room downstairs. We turned the T.V. on to see if anything was on. The remote didn't work and the television had no controls on it so we were stuck watching the Maori channel which was in the Maori language. 

You might be asking, "Why are you watching T.V. in New Zealand and not doing something else?". Well, we were watching T.V. because we were in a small town that's only there because of the glowworm caves and not many people live in town. I am not even sure if there was a town. The general store we tried to go to earlier had closed at 1 p.m. and I did not see any houses in the immediate areas while we went for our hike.

I couldn't help but think of The Shining while we were there. Yes, I know that's creepy but we were alone in a hostel in a village in the middle of now where with a hostel entirely t ourselves and we had no idea where the closes people were to us. So, we were pretty much stuck in our hostel (hopefully without any ghostly twins running around) with nothing to do. We played a couple card games and then walked to the pub down the road. 

We got to the pub and it had closed! At 8:30! We knocked on the door because we figured it couldn't hurt if we just asked to get one beer or something. The owner ended up letting us in and allowed us to buy some beer to take back to the hostel. We took the beer back and just hung out talking watching Maori television. 

Tuesday September 27

We woke up and walked down the road about 2 km to Black Water Rafting. We booked a glowworm cave tour to go on what has to be the craziest tour I've ever done. It started with us putting on a thermal shirt, wetsuits, wetsuit bootees, a wetsuit jacket, plastic boots, a harness, and a helmet with a headlamp. We easily had on over an inch and a half of wetsuit. 

Our group before the tour

We all hopped in a van and got to our destination. We walked up a hill and then we were taught how to abseil. We were told, "If you can't repel yourself into the cave here you cannot continue the tour".We then walked over to the cave opening. It was a 35 meter drop to the cave floor. The hole was shaped like an hourglass so we had to repel a little, squeeze through the hole, and continue to repel. 

This is us learning how to abseil

Before the abeseil. So in this photo I was hanging over a huge hole

A photo of the equipment we used and the hole into the cave

After the abseil we walked down a tunnel and looked at some small crystal formations and then turned off our headlamps to see some glowworms that were right above us. 

Next was the zip line which we did in the dark and all we could see were the glowworms lighting up the cave ceiling. 

After the zipline

The zip line ended right next to the river and when we had all zip lines we hung our feet over the river and had some hot chocolate and some sort of granola bar. 

  

Snacks with our feet hanging over the river.

 Ryan and I enjoying snacks after the zip line

After the snack we grabbed some inner tubes and jumped off a platform into the river (which was about high 40s to mid 50s Fahrenheit). We pulled ourselves up river quite a ways via a rope, swimming through some parts, and running/walking. We got to a section that the ceiling was maybe 3 feet above us and there were thousands of glowworms above us. The guides told us to start screaming because vibrations make the worms glow brighter. So, there we all were screaming at the top of our lungs in the dark. Sounds ridiculous but it worked. We floated back down the river in silence just admiring the glowworms.

A bad photo of us walking up the river while admiring a crystal they had named "Gandalf"

After our float we got rid of our inner tubes and continued to walk down the river and went headfirst down a slide over a waterfall. Continued walking and wading through the water. At some parts the water was at our knees and others it was at our shoulders. One part we had to swim and we crawled through a hole that you had to lie on your side to fit through. 

Going down the slide....I don't know why I made that face. I was not in pain, but enjoying the experience.

Crawling through the small  hole.

We stopped to have another snack of chocolate and a warm orange drink.

Nearing the end we turned down a tunnel and some parts were extremely low and we all had to crouch down and hunch over to walk through. The tour ended with climbing two waterfalls. Now these waterfalls were spewing out tons of water and were easily about 10 feet to 8 feet high. Being in a closed confined cave it was loud and extremely wet. Our guides told us where to put our hands and feet and we climbed our way out of the cave. Sometimes the guide would shout, "Put your hand here!" and would point towards the waterfall where you could see nothing, but water, "Trust me! there's a hold there".

This is another promotional photo for the tour but this is one of the waterfalls we climbed up

Climbing out of the cave

Our tour group after the tour

We got back to their building and took hot showers and had bagels and tomato soup to warm up. We walked back to our hostel picked up our belongings and got on our bus to Rotorua.

Rotorua is a town that is in a volcanic crater. There are multiple hot springs around and many hotels have their own hot spring. Some streets reek of sulfur and is the wind is blowing it just makes it worse. Other streets smell at all, but some of my clothes definitely smell of sulfur still. There are a couple lakes around but the town rests on Lake Rotorua which has a little island in the middle of it. There are also many forests and mountains to climb.

We got dropped off about two blocks from our hostel and checked in and went to the Pig and Whistle for dinner. After dinner we walked around town a little bit and then headed back towards the hostel. We stopped at the grocery for groceries and then went to bed.