When we last left our crazy crew, they had just returned to Tawa after a whirlwind North Island tour…
November 23rd
Lori and I took a quick trip to Porirua this morning. She needed to buy a duffle bag due to the mass quantity of souvenirs she purchased for her family. Thank goodness I got my Christmas shopping done before I left for the States earlier this month! When we got back Jenn and Adam picked up Sandy at the airport - our crew now numbered FIVE.
The afternoon was dedicated to preparing our Thanksgiving meal. We decided to celebrate the holiday a day early so that our Kiwi friends could all make it for the meal. Since I got my pumpkin pie filling and cranberry sauce through customs and Sandy brought the Stovetop stuffing and marshmallows just in time, we had the makings for a superb feast. None of us had actually been in charge of a Thanksgiving dinner before and we were using recipes passed on from our mothers, so it certainly was a test, but it was a SUCCESS! Turkey is expensive here, so we opted for chicken. Other than that we had every Thanksgiving fixin’ you can imagine. Everything turned out perfectly and was delicious. The Kiwis arrived, we filled our plates, Brook prayed for our meal and we ate! During the meal we talked about what Thanksgiving means in the USA and we each shared what we were thankful for this year. To work off the meal we went down the street to the local park to play a friendly game of touch football – in keeping with USA Thanksgiving tradition. Adam brought a Nerf football for us and was a great teacher, especially for the Kiwis who are used to rugby. After the game we came back to eat pumpkin and chocolate pies. A great day!

November 24th
Wellington today. We took the Territory in for some city driving. I didn’t realize how difficult it is to find parking since we usually take the train. Adam was a patient driver. We took the crew for a tour of Parliament, wandered through the Te Papa museum, and then headed over to BluePrint for the Thursday evening church service. Everyone finished up laundry this evening (heaps!) so we could head out again for more traveling tomorrow! We are having a great time with Adam, Lori and Sandy visiting – always laughing and having a great time together.

November 25th
Loaded up and headed out for the 6-7 hour drive North to Waitomo. This town is known for mysterious caves filled with glowworms. We had scheduled our caving adventure for the next morning, so we checked into our hostel and enjoyed a short night walk to catch a glimpse of the famed glowworms. Little did we know that the few we saw would be nothing compared to what we would see the next day!

November 26th
Up early for the highlight of this trip – an abseiling and blackwater rafting/caving adventure with Rap Raft N Rock! Now, we had read the brochure, looked on the web and chatted with the guide company, but I still wasn’t quite sure what we were getting in to. We signed waivers (they didn’t ask for our next of kin this time) and piled into a rickety van. Off we went to parts unknown with Darren, our guide. We arrived at a little shack – where we all stripped to our bathing suits and socks (please note that this day was quite chilly and it was sprinkling rain the entire time). Thankfully, we quickly donned wetsuits, gumboots, helmets with headlamps, a battery pack attached around the waist, and harnesses. Feeling a bit warmer with the wetsuit on, but not used to the gear, we piled back into the van and motored on to a random field at the end of a road. That’s the thing about caves, unless you are privy to knowledge of their whereabouts, you would never know anything was hiding beneath all the grass and sheep. We had a quick lesson in abseiling on a nearby hill. Abseiling, if you’ve never heard of it – as I hadn’t until coming to NZ - is basically lowering yourself down into a hole on a rope with special equipment. This is not repelling, because you aren’t really pushing off any rock surfaces. Just straight down. Sounds thrilling, right? After gaining approval on our abseil rope handling techniques from Darren the Guide, we headed to the mouth of the cave. We had to attach ourselves to guide ropes with carabineers to protect us from going over the edge as we waited in line for our turn. Then, attached to the abseil rope with only a simple metal device, we one-by-one stepped off the landing into the nothingness 27 meters above the cave floor. What a thrill – I really had no idea how the simple metal device on the rope was supposed to stop me from falling straight down as I stepped out into thin air – but somehow it did. I was able to control my speed by feeding the rope through the stop device to speed up the descent or by easily pushing up on the metal pieces with my thumb to slow. Once down on the ground, it was dark and mysterious territory. Unhooked from the ropes and harnesses, we grabbed inner tubes and headed into the cave tunnel, wading through the underground stream. Using our headlamps to navigate, we made our way through the cave to a bank off the river. Darren had us turn off our headlamps, close our eyes, then open and…WOW - the roof of the cave was filled with millions of dazzling little blue-green and white lights – glowworms! Darren quickly got to business popping our balloons when he explained that what we were actually seeing was the glorious waste product of the fungus gnat larva (aka glowworms)! Lovely. But it really was amazing; looking even more brilliant than almost any night sky I’ve ever seen. After spending some time admiring the view, we hopped into our tubes and floated down the river and then had some fun caving. We squeezed through narrow crevasses, climbed over tricky passages, and waded through deep water up to our necks (Jenn lost both her boots, but they were quickly recovered). At one point our guide had us attempt to lie down in the water to float, but all of decided walking was the best bet once the COLD water began seeping in through the necks of our wetsuits. AND…we even had a close encounter with Shrieking Eels! Ok, ok. There WERE eels, but the shrieking was Lori who was definitely NOT comfortable with the inhabitants of our cave river, especially when they slithered past her legs! The final challenge was a climb back up the steep rocky wall next to our abseil spot. Again, one-by-one we attached ourselves to the safety rope and got to work craftily maneuvering up the wall. It was a great help and added sense of security to have Darren at the top putting tension on the safety rope as we made our way up. Back to daylight! Back in the van, out of our gear, BRIEF showers, back in the van, then friendly farewells. I think we all felt a great sense of personal and group accomplishment after we AROSE victorious from the many physical and mental challenges of the morning. An awesome adventure!

Side note -I guess my favorite jeans felt they had met all the challenges they were ever going to face with me, because at the café on our way out of town, I was subtly notified by my compassionate friend Jenn in the restroom that there was a hole in the backside of my pants. Not just a hole, but a massive rip down the inner side of my back pocket. I, feeling quite lighthearted after the challenges of the day, decided to laugh and enjoy the predicament as much as could be expected. Nicely blocking the breeze by another pair of jeans, I got back into the drivers seat to head to Rotorua.

We checked into the Base Backpackers hostel in Rotorua and then waited for our complimentary ride to the evening’s events – a Maori cultural show and hangi at Te Puia. Upon arrival, we were told we had a few minutes to enjoy the Te Puia thermal park before the show began. Our crew went into the Nocturnal Kiwi House…and FINALLY…we got to see two lively kiwis out and about! What a sight – such unique, interesting birds! Lori and I ran off to find the park’s geysers, then made it back in time to hear newly appointed Chief Adam receive instruction on his duties as our tribal leader. Of all the tourists this evening, our Adam volunteered to be chief. At some point around this time it all went to Adam’s head and he began to refer to himself in third person and speak only in short command statements. Factors for this change of course included the friendly car games of MASH, where 3 out of 4 of Adam’s female traveling companions somehow became his wives, as well as the new official title and role as “Chief”. It didn’t help that other male tourists were asking to “join his tribe” after seeing his entourage of women and that “Chief Adam” was asked to walk at the head of the tribe and deliver a crucial speech of greeting to our Maori hosts. So, of course, we dutifully followed…but to this day he still hasn’t heard the end of it!
The show was fantastic – traditional dances (including the Haka), instruments, singing, weapons, costumes, tattoos, and of course the famous facial expressions (eyes wide, tongue out) made the presentation excellent for entertainment as well as learning about Maori culture. After the show, we followed Chief Adam (and our Maori hostess) into the dining room for a traditional hangi meal. A hangi is a method of cooking underground with hot stones. We had a delicious feast. At the end of the huge meal, the hostess asked if anyone would like to share a traditional song from their home country. Our group from the States was first to volunteer - we sang two rousing verses of “Deep in the Heart of Texas” with the entire room clapping along. The four French who shared the table with us also sang a song, as well as a large group of older, rather tipsy English. Everyone received great applause. Overall it was a fantastic event and awesome day!

November 27th
The Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland was the morning’s destination. At 10:15 am everyday the famed Lady Knox geyser erupts. Come to find out this is due to a little prompting with common soap, but a good lesson in history as the explosive properties of the thermal geyser were first discovered by hapless prisoners using the hot water to wash their clothes. Certainly was a shock for them. The thermal park was really amazing, with similar features like Hell’s Gate and the White Island volcano, as well as new sights and some spectacular colors. We had a fun, informative walk through the expansive thermal area and then back into town to drop Sandy off at the bus stop so she could head to Auckland to catch her flight to Australia the next day. A short stay, but we had such fun with Sandy so we were sad to see her go. After more souvenir shopping in Rotorua, and being commanded by Lori not to let her buy anything else, we made the long drive back to Tawa. We decided to do a day trip the next day when plans to go to Napier dissolved due to stormy weather.

November 28th
About a 2 ½ hour drive to Cape Palliser today – the Southern most point of the North Island. I was in the driver’s seat for the journey there, a drive quite memorable for two reasons: the very windy and narrow road through the mountains (both hands on the wheel) and the ding of the gas indicator light and quick decline of our unpredictable gas mileage meter. As I shared my concern with the others about the unfortunate high fuel requirements after the crazy mountain road, the lack of petrol station sightings for the last long while, and my doubts that we would be able to make it to one without hitting the big E, I saw a big flock of sheep, some sheep dogs, and two men. Since we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, best to make human contact when the opportunity arises. Quick turn and we met Duncan the bachelor sheep farmer and his loyal co-worker (never got his name). According to Duncan’s friend, there wasn’t a petrol station anywhere in the vicinity and didn’t we see the sign that said no petrol for the next so many kilometers? Hmmm, missed that one. Duncan chimed in to say he would sell us some fuel if we were really concerned. Quite nervous about our lack, we all decided to take him up on his offer. He filled us up to about ½ a tank, for which we compensated him properly. They gave us directions to the seal colony and Cape Palliser lighthouse, so with renewed confidence, gratitude and our new friends’ well wishes, we were off. A beautiful drive along the rugged coast brought us to the seal colony on the rocky shore. We took plenty of photos and enjoyed the antics of the seals, then decided to move on once we caught a whiff of the seals downwind. Soon we saw the staunch red and white striped lighthouse up on the cliffs. We drove to the carpark near the bottom of the cliffs took a short walk, then found ourselves at the bottom of the 258 steps up to the base of the lighthouse. Looked a lot shorter than it really was! Finally, a bit winded, at the top we were overcome by the gale winds! They were strong enough to knock us over – but it made the trip up much more fun. The lighthouse was really nice and we enjoyed the views and rocks around the base. After a while I noticed a truck driving into the carpark below and realized it was our new friends. Once we made it back down, ready to go with what looked like impending rain, Duncan and his friend were waiting. They said they wanted to make sure we were ok (Adam says if it has been a group of guys they would never have come to check on us – hehehe). We talked for a while and walked over to the shore so Duncan’s friend could look for paua shells under the bush and along the water’s edge. They told us about raising sheep, diving in the ocean and about the better paua shells they had back at the house. Duncan even demonstrated some of the commands he uses with his sheepdogs. This all led to an invitation to follow them back so we could take some of the paua shells they had instead of buying them at a tourist shop. Since we definitely outnumbered the two of them, we agreed (so no worries on safety there for all you concerned). Duncan and his friend were really nice, gave us a multitude of beautiful paua shells and even a large frozen (cooked) crayfish to take home! If we hadn’t run low on gas, we never would have met these local Kiwis and made new friends. And I am sure if Lori, Jenn or I were so inclined, we would find a more than willing sheep farmer husband in Duncan. Ready for dinner, we said our thanks then drove to Lake Ferry, the closest town (but no petrol station), for dinner. Another white-knuckle trip through the mountains, this time in the dark with Adam driving, and more concern about fuel levels – but we made it back to Tawa.

November 29th
Lori packs up and we take her to the airport, then we drop off the Ford Territory. Down to three now. We take it easy. Adam and I shift gears to plan for our quick trip down to the South Island. I am wearing out – but I won’t miss another adventure!!

And we haven’t even hit Chapter Three. For your reading pleasure, that chapter will cover Adam and my weeklong trip down the east coast of the South Island. Not to be missed!