Te Papa

I thought of two more things for my list of differences between New Zealand and Canada:

1. Parking lots are called "car parks".
2. Sidewalks are called "foot paths".

Today I went to pull my bag of cereal out of my backpack and it came out slightly damp… definitely not a good sign. Upon further investigation I found that the bundle of Mandarin oranges I had bought two days ago (!) contained two rotters, which were leaking fetid juices into the shopping bag. Thankfully, all my food is in plastic ziploc bags, so nothing was damaged, but I still had the delightful task of weeding out the few remaining edible oranges, and then washing the bag. By the time I was done my appetite for breakfast was somewhat diminished.

However, the rest of the day was pleasant: I spent it at Te Papa Tongarewa, the National Museum of New Zealand. ("Te Papa" means "Our Place" in Māori.) If you are ever in Wellington you *have* to go; admission is free (a few visiting exhibits require payment), but the architecture of the building and the presentation of the exhibits alone - let alone their content - are worth your time.

Sculptures in front of Te Papa

Having learned my lesson at the Auckland Museum, I didn't attempt to look at everything in Te Papa; I skipped the exhibits that were of lesser interest to me. This included most of the Māori artifacts, but that was because I saw so many of them at the Auckland Museum. It also included about half the animal and plant exhibits, and that was more because I was running out of time and I had left them until the end. I did, however, see the giant squid, which is the only one of its kind on exhibit in the world. It's quite a site to see: at over four metres long, they're not kidding when they say "giant"! It was caught accidentally by a New Zealand fishing ship off the coast of Antarctica in 2007, and donated to the museum by the fishermen, who realised its significance. It was preserved in formalin, and is now exhibited in a specially-designed tank/case.

The first thing I noticed upon coming through the door of Te Papa was a "what's on" board, announcing the Elios String Quartet would be playing a one-hour concert from 12-1 in the Expresso Café on level 4. Never one to pass up a free concert, I bought myself an L&P and had a seat in one of the café chairs, where I ate my lunch (bread and butter and salami, yum) and was treated to the sounds of Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca, di Caupa's O Sole Mio, and several other pieces whose names I can't recall at the moment, but whose melodies were familiar enough that I knew them right away.

The concert finished, I started wandering around and looking at exhibits. Here are some I visited:

Passports: Voyages of migrants to New Zealand

The Mixing Room: Stories of young refugees to New Zealand

20th Century: The story of New Zealand since 1900, including exhibits on the effects of the great depression, the world wars, the country's anti-nuclear stance, the fight for gay rights, and the abortion debate. I had a bit of a shock at the 1950s section, where an interactive display about the increasing prevalence of television in New Zealand started playing Stan Freeberg's "Tele-Vee-Shun".

Blood, Earth, Fire: The story of human settlement in New Zealand, and the devastating impact it has had on native species and the landscape (finally! Admittance that New Zealand is not the pristine untouched wonderland that the tourism brochures proclaim it to be).

My Place: The stories of seven different contemporary New Zealanders and the part of New Zealand they consider home

Awesome Earth: An exhibit all about plate tectonics, the earth's structure and composition, earthquakes, volcanoes, water (erosion), and tsunamis.

In all of the exhibits, I was delighted by the accessibility and readability of their presentations: they combine traditional reading and viewing with hands-on interactive touch screens, audio visual presentations, and kinaesthetic models that one could manipulate and physically interact with. Whenever I found myself getting overwhelmed with reading, I would turn the corner and a video or interactive exhibit would catch my eye and keep me engaged. Anyone who thinks museums are boring obviously hasn't been to Te Papa.

Before I knew it it was 5:30, and with the museum closing soon I headed back for a 15-minute walk along Wellington's seafront to the hostel, where I cooked myself a spaghetti dinner with veggies (yum). Tomorrow morning I catch the 8:00am ferry from the Bluebridge terminal just across the street, but check-in time for foot passengers is 7:15am (ugh), so I had best get to bed. Here's hoping the ferry crossing is relatively smooth!

Te Papa across Wellington harbour

~Carolyn~

25 Fun Differences Between Canada and New Zealand

This may come as a relief to some: I have nothing to write about today! Well, aside from checking out of Base Wellington, squashing everything I have here in New Zealand into my suitcase and hiking backpack, and walking 2km across town in the wind and rain to check into Downtown Backpackers. This hostel has *such* a much more pleasant atmosphere than Base, and it is cheaper, too!

I spent the afternoon in the library reading, because for the last few days I have been suffering from an urge to actually read a book (I only brought one with me, wanting to avoid carrying unnecessary weight). While in the grocery store tonight picking up some vegetables for tonight's dinner, it occurred to me I could make a little list of some things that are different here in New Zealand from Canada that everyone back home might not have considered or be aware of. Here they are:

1. Shopping carts are called "trolleys" or "trundlers".
2. When walking down the street, pedestrian traffic is just like vehicular traffic (i.e. Kiwis walk on the left side of the sidewalk).
3. Yield signs say "Give Way".
3. Zucchinis are called "courgettes", and peppers (i.e. red bell peppers) are called "capsicums".
4. The milk tastes different. I'm not sure why; the cows look the same. It must be in the pasteurization process.
5. Bathing suits are called "togs".
6. Asking where the bathroom is will get you amused glances. "Oh, you must mean the toilet. As far as I know there aren't any bathtubs in there. Besides, you don't want to go have a bath, do you?"
7. The $5 bill is smaller in size than the $10, which is smaller than the $20, etc.
8. Traffic turning left yields to traffic coming the opposite way (turning right, across traffic) on a green light. This rule makes no sense, even to Kiwis.
9. Along the same lines, one can't turn left on a green light at some intersections without a special "turn left" arrow being lit. And forget about trying to do it on a red.
10. The most common rail gauge is 3' 6" (44 inches)
11. Shoe sizings are the ones used in the UK. (Men's and Women's shoe sizes are only 1/2 of a size apart, which means over here I wear a 5 or 5 1/2).
12. Toques are called "beanies", and pins (i. e., ones worn on the chest) are called "badges".
13. If a sink has two taps, sometimes the hot and cold water are reversed. This can get confusing, especially when they aren't labeled.
14. DVDs are Region 6.
15. Doorknob handles are generally a foot or so higher on the door than they are in Canada. I'm not sure why... maybe to frustrate children for longer?
16. Light switches are pressed down for "on" and up for "off" (this one gets really confusing).
17. Each electrical outlet has its own on/off switch.
18. Toilets generally have two flushing buttons: as far as I can tell, they stand for whole tank flush and half tank flush. However, sometimes the two buttons go down together.
19. Coolers are called "chilly bins" (for the thing we put drinks in) and the drinks we call "coolers" in Canada are called "alcopops".
20. Gas (pardon me, "petrol"), is $1.84 a litre.
21. Due to the absence of anything smaller than a 10 cent coin, all purchases whose total end in a 1-4 are rounded down to 0. All those ending in 5-9 are rounded up to the next 10. However, if one pays with debit (called EFT-POS here), the total stays unrounded.
22. Websites end in ".co.nz" .
23. Landline phone numbers have three digit local area codes and four digit local extensions, just like Canada. However, area codes are only two digits. And cell phones are crazy: they have no local area codes, the first three digits indicate whether a number is a vodafone or telecom cell phone, and there can be either seven or eight digits after that, grouped in all sorts of ways.
24. Phones ring twice, i.e. ,"ring-ring" instead of the Canadian "ring"!
25. Dinner is called "tea".

I am sure I will think of more... I'll post them as they come to me.

~Carolyn~

Falling into Middle Earth

Today I allowed my inner literature nerd to burst to the surface by going on an all-day Lord of the Rings movie sightseeing tour around Wellington. I was picked up at 10:15am outside Base Backpackers, and spent the rest of the day with six other people plus our tour guide, Ted, driving around in the minibus to various locations around Wellington. While on the bus Ted kept us entertained by playing pertinent clips from the movies to help us see the areas we were visiting in context, as all the locations have been returned to their natural state, and it takes a bit of imagination to envision the sets as they were during filming.

Our first stop heading north of Wellington was Dry Creek Quarry where Helm's Deep (a fortress in a valley in Rohan) and Minas Tirith (the capital of Gondor besieged at end of The Return of the King) were constructed. Since all three LOTR films were shot as one (without breaks in between), Minas Tirith was built on top of Helm's Deep set, incorporating aspects of Helm's Deep into its design. All that remains are the concrete blocks the sets were constructed on top of; the rest is a mound of gravel and hills covered with scrub brush.

From there we moved to Harcourt Park in Upper Hutt, where Gandalf rode down the path to Isengard, and he and Saruman walked in gardens discussing the mounting power of Sauron and Mordor. The weather was beautiful and sunny today, and with the rhododendrons in bloom the garden looked beautiful. The hilarious part was when Ted had just finished describing how Gandalf rode down this gravel path construced just for filming, and behind him came this older man with a long white beard, just out for a stroll in the park! Perfect timing.

Do I look like Gandalf?

We made two brief stops along the Hutt River: first where Aragorn washed ashore on the banks of the River Anduin and was rescued by his horse Brego in The Two Towers, and secondly where Faramir explains in a flashback to Frodo and Sam how he found his brother Boromir floating dead in a boat. I got to lie down on the (very uncomfortable) rocks and pretend I was Aragorn… apparently when they shot the scene with Viggo they brought in a truckload of sand for the actor to lie on!

We stopped for lunch at Kaitoke Regional Park, where the set for Rivendell was built. Apparently the park warden got so tired of visitors asking how they could get to the set location he incorporated "Rivendell" signs into the rest of the park's signs, so it's on the signposts along with things like "Pakuratahi River Walk" and "Camp Ground"! Looking at the set's site, one would never know it was part of a movie, as before filming all the native plants were removed, placed in a greenhouse, and then replanted in their original locations once filming was complete. Using trees as a reference, however, the angles of some shots can be discerned (FYI, "The Council of Elrond" was filmed indoors in a studio). We all had a chance to don a blonde wig, elf ears, and hold a bow and arrow to recreate a famous promotional shot of Legolas in the forest.

The afternoon was primarily spent up Mt. Victoria Wellington Town Belt, where we visited the filming locations for a number of scenes. The first was a cliff face used for point-of-view shots where a) the hobbits see the Nasgûl swarming them at their Weathertop encampment, and b) Aragorn and Theoden look down at the Dunharrow encampment (in both cases, what the actors were actually looking at was a blue screen, and the action was filled in later at Weta Digital).

The second location was one only seen in the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring, where Frodo and Sam, having just set out from the Shire, camp under a large tree. We recreated the scene, having one of us pose as Sam, cooking sausage and tomatoes on a frying pan, and the other as Frodo, lying in the curve of the trunk of a tree, smoking a pipe, deep in thought.

The next two locations involved the "Shortcut to Mushrooms" scene where the four hobbits are chased out of the cornfield and roll down a steep embankment to land in a heap on the road below, and then when Frodo becomes distraught go and hide under a large tree stump and root system as the Nasgûl gets dangerously close. We recreated the hobbits lying in a heap on the road, complete with the cow pie and broken carrot. Hiding from the Nasgûl was a bit more difficult to recreate, as the stump and root system the hobbits hid under was entirely fake, and as such was removed after filming; the hollow is still there, however, so we took turns posing in it with the ring. I got to play Frodo in both scenes; my co-actors were two men from Holland and one from Germany.

The last site we visited was the hill the hobbits run down to the ferry on the way to the village of Bree as they are chased by the Nasgûl. Here we recreated the famous silhouette shot of the black rider appearing at the top of the path, but by rather unconventional means: three of us posed as the horse! I was the head, a German woman was the rider, and one of the Dutch men was the body and rear. I was somewhat skeptical that this would work, but it actually did! Because we are so far up the hill, and in shadow, we really do look like the silhouette of a horse and rider.

Leaving Mt. Victoria, we continued to Miramar, a suburb of Wellington, and saw the buildings of Stone Street Studios, Park Road Post Production, Motion Capture Studios, and Camperdown Studios, where set work and digital production for LOTR was filmed. The buildings are low-key, with no trumpeting of what goes on inside them emblazoned on their exteriors, which helps to maintain security and secrecy about their projects. Work for Avatar was recently done in these buildings, and now that The Hobbit is going to stay in New Zealand, much of the work on those two films will be done in Miramar as well.

We had a fun hour-long stop at Weta Cave, a store/exhibit of the work of the special effects company. There we saw examples of the armour and weapons of the races of Middle Earth, and many sculptures and books about not just LOTR but Weta's other projects as well. I bought a map of New Zealand that illustrates where many of the key scenes for LOTR were filmed… I have a feeling I will be doing more LOTR location visiting when I get to Queenstown.

Our last two stops for the day were down to the suburb of Seatoun, where many of the actors lived in houses while filming, and where the set of the village of Bree was constructed. We also saw the sandstone along the beach that was inspiration for the "rocks" (carved out of polystyrene) that constructed Shelob's lair; Weta Workshop wanted something that looked like it had been crumbled by the giant spider's venom, and felt the sandstone, weathered by the waves on Wellington's windy shores, was the perfect fit.

I left Middle Earth around 6:30pm when I was dropped back off at Base Backpackers again, suffering from a strong urge to either watch a LOTR movie or start reading one of the books again. Sadly, I did not bring either with me, but something else managed to distract me anyway: tonight, November 5th, is Guy Fawkes night, and I ended up going down to the harbour (just a short walk from here) to watch the fireworks. It had started raining earlier in the evening, but thankfully had stopped, and I was able to enjoy the fireworks without getting completely drenched.

Wellington Harbour at Night

Tomorrow I migrate hostels; I am walking with all my stuff 2 km to Downtown Backpackers, and then if I am feeling up to it (god I hate this cold that will not go away) I will go visit Te Papa, the national museum.

~Carolyn~

Gum Boot Tossing and "Incred-i-bull" Tourism Marketing

Compared to the frenzied adventures of the last few days, today was a welcome respite: a travel day from Tongariro National Park to the capital city, Wellington. I find myself missing Mainline Steam every time we traipse through an area I have already been on the steam train… I crane my neck and try to see the train tracks, trestles, and stations. It's also a little bit comforting; things seem familiar.

I woke up this morning with a hugely congested nose and cough… my cold has resurged with a vengeance, likely in reaction to my 20km hike yesterday. As such, I have decided to hang out in Wellington for a few days, taking it easy and trying to get rid of it before continuing on to the South Island on another Stray Bus. Well, somewhat taking it easy… I am going on an all-day Lord of the Rings Movie tour tomorrow (I couldn't resist).

This morning we left National Park Village at 9am, and headed on down to Ohakune, where I had my first Mainline Steam déjà vu experience (though to be fair, we drove through the main street of town, while the train station is on the other side). We saw the Giant Carrot monument ("World's Biggest Hoe" moment!), then continued on to Taihape. Here I had my strongest Mainline Steam déjà vu: we stopped right by the train station! The reason for doing so is it is the location of the Taihape Gumboot Throwing Lane. Yep, here in this town it is a local pastime to see how far one can throw an ordinary gum boot, and they even have a little grassy section of field reserved just for this very purpose. Hoff had us all get off the bus and have a go at it, promising to buy a drink for the guy and girl who could throw it the farthest. There were several hilarious incidents, including Jenny (from the UK) spinning around like a top only to let go at the wrong moment and nail Mike in the face with the toe of the gum boot, and John from Australia(?) winding up for his last attempt at winning the free beer, only to throw it sideways, clearing the fence, and up over the roof of the Stray bus parked beside it to land on the road below. I'm not sure who the winner for the guys was, but I won for the girls! I get to go collect my free beer in a few minutes.

For lunch we stopped in a little town called Bulls, who has capitalized on its somewhat unusual name in a series of groaner puns when naming buildings and services: the information centre is "Inform-a-bull", depositing one's garbage in a rubbish bin is "Respons-i-bull", the Police are the "Const-a-bull"s, the Library is "Read-a-bull"… you get the idea.

When we stopped for diesel just outside of Wellington I realized that two people on the bus were the American couple John and Rachel I met way bay at my orientation meeting in September, and traveled with up in the Bay of Islands! Crazy how people can meet up again like that. John sounds a little bit jaded about their travels so far, however; he spoke disparagingly of the hostel they had been working for in National Park, and he was disgusted with the "cultural experience" at Uncle Boy's marae in Maketu. I didn't say much in response; I am starting to believe that New Zealand is what you make it, and if you approach things as a budget backpacker expecting them to be perfect, you're going to be disappointed.

Now I am situated at Base Backpackers in downtown Wellington, and I will be here for two nights before moving to Downtown Backpackers near the train station… I would much rather be at Downtown, due to its proximity to the ferry terminal, and simply to get out of Base… I am really not a fan of this chain of hostels. I suppose if one is a partier and likes to be near the bars and all the action they're great, but I would rather save my money and stay at a place a bit farther out of town where the floors aren't stained and the bathroom showers don't leak down into the kitchen ceiling (true story).

I'm off to the bar for my free beer… night!

~Carolyn~

Tongariro Crossing: My Visit to Mordor and Mt. Doom

This morning we woke up at the ungodly hour of 6am (very ungodly for those of us who had rafted and skydived the day before), so we could be out of the hostel and loaded onto the bus by 7am. Destination: National Park Village, where those of us doing the Tongariro Crossing would meet up with our two guides from Adrift (the company name). National Park Village is so named after Tongariro National Park, which was established in 1887, making it New Zealand's first national park (actually the fourth national park in the world). The land was a gift of the local Māori iwi Ngati Tuiwharetoa chief Te Heuheu, who saw giving the sacred land to the government (on the condition it be preserved for all the people of New Zealand) as the best way to save it from development. Now a World Heritage site, the park contains three volcanoes, all active: Mt. Tongariro, Mt. Ngauruhoe, and Mt. Ruapehu. Mt. Ngauruhoe is now famous to the world for starring as Mt. Doom in The Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies (although interestingly, because the top of the volcano is sacred to the Māori, Peter Jackson was granted permission to film the mountain but not its cone, and instead created a new CGI one in the computer). Mt. Ngauruhoe last erupted in 1975, Ruapehu in 2007, and Tongariro in 1926. Although we did see steaming sulphur vents, the volcanoes were kind and did not erupt during our hike. :-)

And what a hike it was: named one of the best one-day hikes in the world, it was gruelling in places, and definitely an all-day affair at almost 20km. We started at the Mangatepopo Car Park, then hiked 4.4 km over a gently sloping graded path to the foot of the aptly named Devil's Staircase. On the way up we took the newly constructed Devil's Staircase pathway, which featured actual gravel stairs that we took at a snail's pace to accommodate those who are not used to hiking. From then we wandered through Central Crater, created during one of Tongariro's eruptions, then continued on up and out of the crater to the side of Red Crater (so called because it is red from all the iron oxide present in its rocks), and ate lunch beside the Red Crater. From there we had a stunning view of Emerald Lake, Blue Lake, and far away in the distance Lake Taupo. We also had a view of some of the land that stood in for Mordor: barren, and dotted with unforgiving looking piles of rock, I could see why it was chosen for the role.

Start of the Devil's Staircase

The land of Mordor!

The Red Crater

Emerald Lakes

The crater floor steaming. This is a volcano!

The geology of the area was fascinating to me, but having no more than a layperson's understanding I will not attempt to describe it in detail here. Suffice it to say the rock surrounding Mt. Ngauruhoe was very light and full of holes, as Ngauruhoe erupts with fits and starts of gases and ash (it's not creating pumice, however: one of our guides, Dave, told me that), while Mt. Tongariro's eruptions are more violent, sending rocks and boulders raining down on the land below. As a result of all this volcanic activity, the old lava flows are readily visible, and little can grow in the area: the vegetation comprises mainly of grasses, scrub brush, and a few hardy flowers such as the yellow mountain daisy. You can read about Tongariro National Park here: http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/national-parks/tongariro/ .

Mmm, rock...

Having completed our lunch, we then trekked across the snow (yes, lots of snow, though melting) and up to the summit of Mt. Tongariro. It was amazing how quickly the weather could change; one minute we were sweating our way out of the Central Crater, the next we were pulling on layers to ascend through the wind and swiftly-moving clouds on the way to the summit of Tongariro. At 1967 m tall, the view would have been slightly more impressive had the clouds lifted, but as it was I was able to catch a glimpse of the top of Mt. Ngauruhoe and the valley on the opposite side of Tongariro inbetween snatches of cloud.

Coming down from Mt. Tongariro's summit was a combination of half sledding, half walking: after our guides Chris (short for Christine) and Dave told us to go slowly and dig our heels in to stop ourselves from slipping in the snow, several of us (myself included) simply threw ourselves down the snowy side of the mountain. Several went down on their butts like they were tobogganing, and several others (like myself) rode down on our shoes like we were surfing (I knew my surf lessons would come in handy!). The remaining cautious ones held hands and walked slowly down; ultimately, I think it would have been easier if they had just opted for wet bums and allowed themselves to slide.

The hardest part of the descent was the Devil's Staircase: just for variety, Chris took us down the original Devil's Staircase, not the nice path (with actual stairs) that we ascended. This "path" (and I use the term loosely) was nothing but gravelly igneous rock and scrub brush and dust, with some boulders to weave our way carefully through lest we fall head over heels. I've never had problems with my knees before while hiking, but after fifteen minutes of solid downhill, picking my way and jumping like a mountain goat, they were definitely starting to get sore. Apparently I wasn't the only one: many of the rest of the group took a good fifteen minutes extra to get down the cliff, and when they did arrive opted to head straight for the base of the Devil's Staircase instead of detouring as I and several people did over to see Soda Springs, where we filled up our waterbottles with sparkling spring water freshly falling over a pretty waterfall, after exiting from the side of the mountain moments before.

Just looking at this photo makes my knees ache.

The hike back down to the parking lot seemed to extend for ages for my tired feet, when in reality it was only 4.4km (and most of it downhill). I kept myself distracted from my increasing tiredness by seeing if I could recite an entire episode of "The Addams Family" from memory... yes, I know I'm a nerd. But I did recite it silently, not out loud, as I figured that would cause distress in those walking ahead of me (I was the last one of our group off the mountain). By the time I was three quarters of the way through we were back in the car park and boarding our bright orange Stray bus that had come to pick us up.

We are staying for the night at Park Traveller's Lodge in National Park Village, a spiffy joint with spa pools (which I did not partake in) and a nifty on-site bar called "Spiral Bar" (after the Raurimu Spiral) and decorated with all sorts of railway signage and memorabilia. Hoff (our bus driver) watched me with some amusement as I ran around the bar with my camera, taking pictures of all the locie drawings and such.

After a dinner of a rapidly-devoured hamburger and fries (for some reason I was rather hungry after walking nearly 20km...!) I am now situated in my four-bedroom loft with three other girls (Senna, Jenny, and Emma), and sitting here on my twin bed on the upper part of the loft, I am absolutely exhausted and am wondering if I even have the energy to spell-check this before posting, let alone stumble blearily down the stairs to brush my teeth before bed. Goodnight!

~Carolyn~

White Water Rafting and SKYDIVING (Or, I've Apparently Lost My Mind)

Well, we definitely discovered who the loudest snorer was last night: Celestina. Captain America and his chauvinistic ways was already wearing thin with some of the other Stray travelers, and we weren’t too sad to see him get off the bus in Rotorua.

This morning we were woken up by Uncle Boy’s choice of rousing music: Abba’s Greatest Hits. I woke up to a chorus of “Mamma Mia”, and wondered what the hell was wrong with me for me to be dreaming of Abba songs while sleeping in a Maori marae. When the music switched to “Dancing Queen”, however, I knew my subconscious wouldn’t be that cruel.

Today will go down in memory as the most adventurous of my life: if I end up topping today, I have a feeling I will not live to tell the tale. This morning I went white-water rafting with Kaitiaki Adventures on the Kaituna river, a Grade V river complete with a 7 metre drop over the Okere Falls. As luck would have it, I ended up sitting in the front of the raft next to one of the guides, so I was first in line when we plunged, nearly vertical, into the basin at the bottom of the falls. Combined with the shin injury I sustained helping load the raft into the river (I was accidentally pushed by the raft off the concrete platform), I consider today to be a day of body abuse.

Approaching the falls... yikes!

Over we go... I'm on the left, in front.

We made it!

This isn’t to say the rafting wasn’t fun: it was! There were two boats out at the same time, so we got to watch the other rafters do everything we did (and marvel at our mutual craziness). In all, it was great, splashing, wet fun. I find it amusing that I had never worn a wetsuit until my surfing lesson on the 31st, and now today was the third day in a row I found myself strapped, packed, and otherwise stuffed into one. I have all sorts of pictures from the rafting that I will have to upload (any photos uploaded at this point would be an achievement, really).

After the 7m falls, we were pretty much fearless.

After we finished rafting the Kaitiaki Adventures bus drove us back into the town of Rotorua, famous for its geothermal activity (if not for the pungent smell of sulphur that permeates the city). Back on the Stray bus, we headed south for the city of Taupo, stopping at Waiotapu Thermal Mud Pools and a hot river along the way. There is something surreal about seeing boiling mud burble and splatter out of the ground in a mucky, steaming pool. Equally surreal was the hot water river we got out and waded into; it’s indiscernible from the photos I took; but the water is as warm as a jacuzzi tub (although a little bit murkier).

Our last stop before Taupo was the Huka falls, New Zealand’s most visited tourist attraction, where the Waikato River (the country’s longest river) surges from Lake Taupo and heads on its 425km journey to the sea south of Auckand. About 200 000 litres fall over the 9 metre falls every second: enough to fill five Olympic-sizes swimming pools per minute!

Once we arrived and settled into our hostel in Taupo, I and seven other people from our bus embarked on what was likely the biggest thrill of our lives: skydiving! Yes, I, Carolyn Taylor, went skydiving. My guide and tandem was a man named Chris, who was very kind and relaxed, which was an excellent fit, as I was surprisingly calm and in an excellent headspace (my biggest worry was about my slowly-receding head cold, as it is not advisable to jump with clogged ears or a stuffy nose). Skydiving is something I have wanted to try since I was ten years old and saw it on a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode, and today I got my chance.

I opted for the full-meal-deal, as it were: a skydive from 15 000 feet (over 4 500 metres), with a personalised DVD, still photos, and a t-shirt. The DVD is made from a camera attached to the wrist of one’s tandem guide, so it actually films one in free-fall and parachuting in the sky. We even got to pick the music used in the DVD background!

We're going up there!

We might need a little help...

Sitting at the edge of a plane over 4.5 kilometers up in the air, at an open door, knowing one is going to jump out and plunge toward the ground, accelerating to a maximum rate of 200km/hr sounds somewhat terrifying, but I have to say I was extremely calm. I don’t now if it was the lack of oxygen (they did give us oxygen for part of the ascent) to my brain, but I think I was simply resolved this was something I really wanted to try, and I trusted Chris’ experience as a skydiver to keep me safe. The scariest moment was actually the instant we left the plane and started to drop: the acceleration is intense, and one is spinning and tumbling around, losing all sense of up and down, while the air whips by fast and fierce enough to spread your cheeks out like a chipmunk. I didn’t scream, or make any sounds; I was too enthralled with the experience. Once terminal velocity is reached, it really does feel like you are flying.

Sixty seconds of freefall does indeed feel like a lot longer; when Chris pulled the cord to release our parachute, it felt like we were being abruptly pulled upward, though in reality of course we were simply rapidly deaccelerating. The problem with the human brain is we have no adaptation to perceive distance above about 1000 m, so it didn’t feel like we were moving in the vertical plane at all until Chris pulled the parachute. Likely the most surreal moment was just gliding around, gently letting the parachute do its work and bring us safely back to earth, enjoying the spectacular scenery of the New Zealand landscape spread out below us. Featuring prominently in this was Lake Taupo, formed by the largest volcanic eruption in recorded human history in 180AD (Apparently it affected sunsets in China, and made the explosion of Krakatoa look like a pimple). At 606 km2, it’s the largest lake in New Zealand. Chris let me try my hand at steering the parachute by pulling on the leads on either side; steering capability is definitely a plus, as I didn’t want to end up landing *on* the lake!

We landed with a gentle bump on the grass just outside Skydive Taupo headquarters, and then our group of four (Emma, Lettie, Mike, and myself) relaxed and tried to let our ear pressures return to normal (mine still hasn’t, almost five hours later), and lay on our backs on the grass, squinting up at the sky, trying to see the second group of skydivers plunge toward the earth. Already the experience was beginning to fade, becoming more dream like and surreal, which I suppose is understandable, as our poor brains tried to process what the heck we had just done to our minds and bodies. This is why we all have the DVD of the experience, so we can relive it over and over again. :-)

I must be off to bed; tomorrow the fit among us hike the Tongariro Crossing, voted one of the best one-day hikes in the world. It’s 20-something kilometres, however, so I definitely need my sleep to be rested and prepared (it is 11pm now and we leave at 7am. Ugh). When I look back at what I did today, I think I must be going slightly crazy, but as the slogan at Taupo Skydive said, “Fear is temporary; achievement is permanent”. Well said.

~Carolyn~

Spelunking Down Under (Yes, that can be taken literally, ha ha).

A day full of adventure and new experiences! Any sadness I felt for not having a traditional Hallowe’en with pumpkins and morbid, creepy experiences was wiped out by the sheer fun of today’s activities.

This morning we left Karioi Lodge at 8am, dropped off one person and picked up a few more, then drove out for Waitomo, a region famous for its limestone caves. (Wai means “water”, and tomo means “sinkhole” or “entrance”; in this sense “cave”.) I chose to do Haggas Honking Holes, a four-hour spelunking adventure that the information pack warned involved getting very wet (“feel like Indiana Jones in a washing machine!”). They weren’t kidding! The cave is named (and of course I can’t remember the name) after the man who discovered it in 1906 by accidentally falling into one of its entrances after rolling down a grassy knoll and falling off a cliff (he broke his legs, but was found and recovered). The cave wasn’t fully explored until the 1960s, which is understandable once inside: there is a considerable amount of water, and many places where climbing and rappelling gear is necessary. The cave actually connects up to another called St. Benedict’s Caverns, about at 6km trek underground, that our guide Dion told us is done once a year by the tour guides, takes them about eight hours moving at a fair pace, and involves full submersion (essentially diving) in underground pools to get through.

In New Zealand, if you discover caves on your property, they are rightfully yours, as all New Zealand land owners own their property from the surface down to the centre of the earth. Consequently, the cave we were exploring with the tour company is privately owned by the owners of the farm above, which is why the tour is called “Haggas” (after the farm); the rest of the name comes from a Dr. Seuss book the tour company owner used to read to his children.

There were five of us doing this particular spelunking adventure (myself, Mike, Anne-Marie, Nina, and Celestina); the rest (wimps!) opted for a tame ride-in-a-raft-and-look-at-the-glowworms “Spellbound” underground tour. After being dropped off at the tour guide office, we drove for about 15 minutes up to the Haggas farm to the tour company shed, where we were outfitted in wetsuits, wetsuit vests, helmets, and gum boots. We were then given a short lesson in abseiling on a steep pasture side shared with sheep; here I quickly realised that abseiling is another term for rappelling, but with slightly different gear (instead of a knot system, we used a metal friction device). As such I was fairly comfortable, having rappelled down a seven-story rain-barrel at Horne Lake Caves on the island. The guides Sara and Dion quickly figured out that I had some experience spelunking and rappelling, and gave me the responsibility of looking out for and helping the other four several times in the cave. (Sara also told me one of her friends had worked in a cave in Canada, and it turned out it was Horne Lake Caves! Such a small world.)

The entrance to the cave was likely the scariest part for me: to get in we had to maneuver ourselves into a narrow opening with a steep drop-off, onto a metal ladder about six feet long. I went last, and had to coax Nina down ahead of me, even holding her hand at one point. What made it scary for me was a) not being used to trying to get a footing on slippery limestone in gum boots, and b) not having any sort of belay or safety rope system to catch me if I fell. Having been climbing on belay at Horne Lake Caves and slipping on the face of the cliff, I know first hand the rope system would catch me and keep me safe, and climbing without it made me very nervous. So unlike the rest of the group, who freaked out when we got to the seven-metre abseil down the waterfall, I had my biggest fear over and done with at the entrance to the cave. Whew!

The second abseil was quick to follow the first one, and involved getting very wet; we had to rappel right down a waterfall, and stop in the middle for Sara to take a picture of us (we weren’t allowed to take our cameras into the cave; likely too many accidents with damaged non-waterproof devices). Our gum boots rapidly filled with water, which wasn’t so bad, because the small amount of water warmed up to body temperature, keeping our feet reasonably comfortable. The wetsuits also kept our bodies fairly warm. What stayed quite cold were our hands, being constantly exposed to the running water.

For the third abseil, it was too narrow for us to climb down properly; instead, Sara had us put our hands on our helmets, and she turned off our lights and lowered us down in total darkness, about four meters, in a waterfall! Very cold, but very cool.

After the third abseil we had to walk through the waterfall we had just descended to the cavern on the other side, then crawl on our hands and knees through the flowing water into the next larger chamber. I figured if Celestina, who is quite a large man from Arizona (and quickly nicknamed “Captain America”) would fit through the openings, I wouldn’t have any problems.

In one of the bigger caverns we were given a brief geology lesson in cave formation: limestone, essentially ancient ocean seafloor consisting of sediment and algae compacted into rock, is worn away by the rushing water trying to find its lowest point. The quintessential cave features, stalactites and stalagmites, are comprised of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and start out as soda straws, hollow tubes that become clogged. Sara also pointed out formations that here in Canada are called cave bacon. I quickly realised they are far less concerned about conservation of the cave formations than at Horne Lake Caves; here it was explained that we should not touch the structures lest we deposit oil from our fingers and discolour and ruin them, but not with the seriousness and formality of back home in Canada. I had already told Nina and Captain America all this earlier in the cave, leading them to ask me if I was a scientist. Sigh, no, that’s just me being me...! Sara asked us how far we thought we had gone. Nina estimated two kilometers, and Captain America the same; I said three hundred metres. Guess who was correct. :-)

After another photo op of looking decidedly stuck in a watery hole, and passing by some fossilised oysters in the cave wall, we had another break in a large cavern where we got a snack of juice and a marshmallow chocolate bar, then we turned off our headlamps and Dion taught us all about the bioluminiscent glowworms. I won’t describe their fascinating life cycle; instead, you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnocampa . Suffice it to say that after a few minutes of sitting in the darkness with just the glow worms for light, I started to be able to see their refelctions in the running water below, and even the faint shadows of our gum boots (they were white). It was as if the roof of the cave was the sky, covered with a hundred tiny blue-green stars.

By then we were starting to climb our way out of the cave; Dion took me up front and asked me to be a spotter at the bottom of one of the ladders, clipping the carabiner onto the person’s harness, making sure it was safe, and calling “climbing” to let Sara know at the top the person was starting up the ladder. I was sorry to be leaving the cave so soon; I wanted to stop and gaze for hours on all the fascinating structures, and climb and explore the caverns we passed by. Sigh. I need to do more spelunking.

Back on the surface, and after a warm shower in the tour barn, we headed back to Waitomo Adventure Centre headquarters, where I was able to purchase a CD with photos from our trip and general pictures of the cave. Then it was back on the Stray Bus, where we bragged to the other travellers about how amazing our afternoon was while we made our way to Maketu, a Māori town where we would have our unique “cultural experience”.

This blog entry is already becoming ridiculously long, so I will keep my summation of the cultural experience short. We are in a Māori marae (meeting house), had a traditional dinner (hangi), and had a concert where we interacted with the local Māori performers (Maketu residents, from a nine-year-old boy to a 40-something woman). I loved the intimacy of the setting; it felt warm and friendly, like a family. As the chief, named Uncle Boy told us, we are now part of his tribe (iwi), his extended family. We had to elect a chief of our own tribe (iwi Stray) and accepted the leaf offering on the ground when confronted by the Māori tribe’s haka (a dance; in this case, threatening). After making it known that we were there on peaceful terms, we performed the hongi, the sharing of life breath, by shaking hands and touching noses with the other tribe. We then sat in the marae and listened to a few musical numbers by the Māori, then the men left the room to go learn the haka (in this case, the war haka used by the All Blacks rugby team), while the women stayed in the marae and learned to use a poi (a ball on a string that one spins, that was originally used to train the men’s wrists for stanima and strength in using hand-to-hand combat weapons).

We the all performed for one another in the marae; we women got to keep our normal clothes on, but the men had to perform in just their underwear and traditional Māori skirts! If they were self-conscious about their bare chests, they were confident in covering it up. At the end of the concert, the Māori taught us the actions to a song, and we all sang and danced together, and posed for pictures. Afterward the chief, Uncle Boy, gave us a brief talk about the history of the Māori, how they got to New Zealand, and described the artefacts mounted on the wall. My brain is too full of information, and I can't hope to write it all here... I'll just have to put it in my personal memory box. :-)

The guys get ready to perform the haka.

Off to bed for me; we are all sleeping on mattresses on the floor in the marae, so it’s likely going to be a night of finding out who snores the loudest (my bet is on Captain America), and me trying not to cough every twenty seconds and annoy everyone around me. Off to Rotorua tomorrow for even more adventure!

~Carolyn~