NZ update 2 Jun 3, 2007
From the Desk of: JG Pasterjak
Well, screw it. I can’t seem to get big files to upload, so I’ll just post some pictures today and hope I can get videos up at our next campground.
Sunday and Monday were rather spectacular. Both because we finally got out bags Saturday night, and we did some really cool stuff. Sunday we woke up at the Goat Island Campground (Goat Island is a marine preserve about an hour and a half north of Auckland) and headed south. We did a little snorkeling at Goat Island, which is considered one of the world’s finest snorkeling spots, but even with wetsuits on it was too cold to last too long for Florida folk. In the hour or so we were snorkeling, though, we did see multitudes of huge fish, and one enormous skate—probably at least five feet across. Big sumbitch.
Sunday we took a hike in the Tawaharinui regional park. Regional parks in NZ are about the equivalent of our state park system. Tawarhinui is a peninsula just south of Goat Island. The Ecology Trail hike we took was basically a 4.5km sampling of pretty much every different type of environment in the park—from rugged coastline and dunes to open pastureland, hardwood forests and dense, tropical rainforests that look like dinosaurs should be walking around in them.
Sunday afternoon we drove down to Waitomo—about 3 hours from Tawarhinui—where we had a cave tour planned. Actually, calling it a cave tour really doesn’t do it any justice. There would never be anything like this in America (or, as the Indians call it: “Land of a million lawyers”). Which brings me to a little aside: I constantly hear folks these days spouting off about how America is the greatest country in the world because we’re so free and freedom this and freedom that and people in other places don’t get us because we’re too real for them. Well, guess what? Americans are little crybaby pussies who wouldn’t know what freedom was if it kicked them in their American flag shorts. We’ve built our own little personal prisons of blame, scapegoating and excuses, fostered by a rabid media bent on turning us against each other. But enough about that.
Our cave day started with out outfitting into thick, padded wetsuits, boots, helmets with lights on them (which was awesome), and a full descending harness. Our group, which consisted of my wife e and myself, a young lady from the UK named Zoe, and one male and one female guide took the short drive from the tour offices to the cave. Once there, we got some basic lessons in rappelling, or abseiling if you’re not American. One hand on the rope, one hand on the brake, don’t let go. After some quick practice on the bunny hill, it was time for the real thing: A free suspended rappel into Ruakuri cave, about 110 feet below through a narrow hole in the earth. Once you squeezed through the narrow passage and found yourself hanging in near total darkness 100 feet about the cave floor, it was a little humbling. And once my death grip on the rope slacked a bit and I began to trust my equipment the descent was much less nerve-racking than the first ten feet of my crash course in the fact that gravity worked. Even more impressive was watching my wife—admittedly not the most adventurous type—zip down like an old pro. At first Zoe and I thought it was the other guide coming down, Dana having backed out at the last minute, but about half was down we realized it was Dana, making the rest of us look bad. Her excuse for the rapid descent was that she figured the less time she was hanging up there the less time she’d have to be scared. Seemed to work.
After the descent, there was a brief walk, then the next thing we knew we were being hooked to zip lines and sent careening off in pitch blackness. The brochure said “Flying Fox” which we took to to mean that we would get to see some of those big-ass bats. But, apparently, the language failed us and the flying foxes would actually be us.
From there it was a jump into the icy cold underground river and we mounted out inner tubes for a float down the tunnels. Millions of glow worms line the walls and ceiling of the underground caves. If you saw the “caves” edition of Discovery Channel’s “Planet Earth” you know what I’m talking about. If not, just Google Waitomo glow worms.
Once we had finished with the water deep enough for tubing, we took back to our feet and walked through the increasingly cold and fast moving underground stream. At some points we had to take to all fours to squeeze under or through a tight gap, nd rarely was the ground ever level or smooth enough to navigate by foot alone. Near the end of the experience, there was an optional free climb up an underground waterfall that all three of us in the group pretty much agreed that there’d be no f’n way we could ever make. We all agreed to at least give it a try, and one by one, with some expert guidance from both guides, we all made it up. Even Dana, fake hip and recently broken foot and all, made the ascent like she knew what she was doing.
This is definitely one of those “must-do” events should you ever find yourself in this part of the world. And don’t puss out and do one of the “easy” tours where you just float down the river in a boat. You’ll kick yourself later. Honestly, had we known ahead of time what this particular tour would entail, we never would have singed up for it, mostly because we never would have believed we could have actually accomplished some of the things we did. Having done it, however, we wouldn’t question our decision al all. Going in, I sort of figured “Ehh… it’s for tourists, how tough can it be?” Well, this ain’t litigious America. The term “Adventure Tour” means something different here. This is not manufactured adventure packaged for the entire family. This is the real deal. There was not a single Starbucks in the cave.
Tomorrow we’re taking a two-hour ATV quad tour through the countryside, which should be interesting given how much it’s been raining. After that we’re looking at visiting the heavy geothermal area of Rotorua, then maybe stopping and seeing Hobbiton (yeah, we had to do SOME nerd stuff). More words and pix when I have ‘net.
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