Today was a pretty chill day overall. I say day there for a very specific reason. So today we got picked up in the morning in Rotorua and made our way down to Waitomo. We stopped first at Te Puia, this really cool little park with geysers and such and some cool Maori stuff including some wood carvings and weavings that were pretty amazing. We stopped afterward to get my refund from the Maori dinner and then continued on. Next stop was Zorbing.
OMG!!!!
Zorbing was fantastic. Whoever thought it was a great idea to make a human hamster ball with water in it is a certified GENIUS. You try to stand as you are pushed down this zig zag path but it is impossible. Instead you just kinda surf around in a washer machine like fashion in the bottom of this ball. I apparently caught air. I say apparently because in the ball you have no idea which direction is which. I tried to take a video with a waterproof camera inside but failed. Do have a few interesting picture and videos to go with though. Alex and kim didn't want to do it so they went to this funny farm show instead. Lame if you ask me, but apparently it was good.
We continued on where we stopped at this random extreme adventures place where they had a few different things all in one such as bungy, swings, jet boating, simulated skydiving, etc. Didn't do any as I didn't find the appeal. Instead just ate the free sausages they gave us.
When we got to Waitomo we were dropped off immediately at the black water rafting place for the 8 of us that were doing the Abyss tour. It was a great group. We had team Sweden (Axel and Nickolas), Alex(g), Alex(b), Team UK (Josef and Adam) and Sarah. We got geared up which took a while. We wore: bathing suit, wet suit, booties, plastic boots over booties, wet suit jacket, shorts, helmet, harness, and harness accessories. Tad hard to move afterward. The took us to the spot where we practiced the rappel we were going to do and then went into it.
SAAAHHHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!
Prolly one of the coolest things I have ever done. Period.
We started off with at 34 meter rappel on a sheer rock face after squeezing through a hole. Went down pretty fast too so that was even more fun. I went first on about every element to the trip so it made it more unpredictable and more crazy. Got down to the bottom and waited there with my light off looking up at a few glow worm in the top of this massive cavern. We then did intros and headed to the zip line. The hooked us in, turned out all the lights, and sent me zipping into the darkness with tons of glow worms overhead. Very cool. I was jerked to a halt and there were two huge bangs. Later discovered they were the result of the first guide trying to fuck with me. He didn't succeed. They gave us some hot tea and these really good honey oat bar things for snack and then distributed the tubes for the "rafting" bit. The entrance to the rafting bit was jumping off a 10ft+ cliff into the water below with the tube on your butt, landing on it so as not to break your legs or something awful. Whoooo! The rafting bit was more floating. We just pulled ourselves along on still water using a rope and looking up at the glow worms. Very cool. We discovered how to tow each other by hooking feet into rafts which made more fun chain. We doubled back and redeposited our tubes. From here on it was just trekking by foot. We ventured through the caves for over a kilometer (i think it was 1.5 or so) floating, climbing and exploring. Couple cool parts to go through including tight spaces and a headfirst slide. Later on they stopped and gave us hot tang and chocolate (tasted fantastic even though hot tang sounded weird at first). Past that was climbing up waterfalls (very very very cool, kinda difficult too) and also meeting Cecil the eel that has her own pond. She came right up when the guide summoned her over and just kinda chilled there looking at his finger in the water. I thought she would pounce, but she never did. She must have been at least a few feet long too. Over more waterfalls and out!
Hot showers and soup greeted us back at the base and we purchased a few photos since they were cheap and cool. Chilled out there then headed back to check into the hostel. Again, reception was closed but we got someone to check us in. I got a pretty sweet room with one of the Brits (Adam) that was this two story condo like thing with two beds, bathroom and closet on ground floor and two beds upstairs. I grabbed the free one downstairs, Adam the free one upstairs. Dropped our stuff and headed to the kitchen.
I volunteered to make food for the night since we missed dinner with the others. I prepared the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo for the 8 of us, delicious! and then we went over to the bar for a while. Californication was on their way to drunkenness with this around the world challenge thing of 12 beers and you get a free mug afterward. We had our nice perch to the side and the rounds began. Later round 2am, Adam and I peaced for bed after escaping Alex(b)'s blockade of the door as we were supposed to stay with him and complete the challenge as well. We get back to our sweet room and one guy is in the bed next to mine gently snoring. We part and head to bed. At this time, Andrew, as I later discovered was his name (but hereafter referred to as "Kid") woke up and began to talk to me and introduce himself. Thus begins the night....
Disclaimer: most of this is on the lines of verbatim and thus uses strong language :D If this offends you or are worried that your son/brother/relative/friend is over abusive. I assure you it was all necessary/useful. (and it adds to the drama of the story)
He talked FOREVER!!!! My god this kid could just chat about anything. I'm face down in bed, eyes closed only talking on occasion to not be completely rude or asshole like figuring he would get the message, apparently not. I discovered he's from Oz in Brisbane off traveling on Contiki tours in NZ then off to Hawaii, he seems young. He's also been working at the Coles (grocery store back home). I'm guessing this kid is like 18-20 years old. Still he's friendly, but clueless.
I finally feign asleep (a skill mom and the sisters perfected in my younger years). He shuts up. Bout that time roomie 2 rocks up loud and drunk. He's Canadian and all about going to this party. He tries to convince Kid to go with him. He also realizes I'm there and goes "who the fuck is that?" I introduce. He also discover Adam is upstairs. This upsets him because "that is [his] bed" We tried to simply explain that there were two beds and he took the empty one as is normal hostel procedure. He's beyond reckoning at this point and just pissed and wanting to party. He leaves in frustration. Kid talks a bit more, i try to sleep. Canadian (his codename) returns about 30 min or so later, just enough to interrupt sleep right before you get there. Carbon copy earlier episode here. This time he tries to convince the other dude strongly to come with him. Kid is now getting afraid of Canadian and "doesn't like him any more" and says that "he's starting to scare me." Canadian leaves. He returns 30 min later, random girl comes in and leaves promptly. He assaults Kid again and is still pissed about his bed, I tell him to leave him the hell alone and go to bed. He has hissy fit over bed again saying that his stuff was up there and on that bed, he can't sleep in that bed, or something redic, Adam even clears off his bed (not kindly, I might add) and this dude still can't handle it. Dude leaves again. Round 4-ding ding ding!
This time Canadian return with two other drunk assholes. He and another proceed upstairs to hassle Adam. Third one remains downstairs to hassle me and Kid. Other asshole comes downstairs and both start into it with me saying that I shouldn't even be there. The start edging closer, getting a tad more aggressive. I tell them to back the fuck off. One even lightly grabbed my arm. They are tyring to egg me on saying "come on, hit me in the balls." What sane minded man would every say this I don't know. I turn over in bed and ignore them. This last all of a minute or two before they gathered renewed vigor and ripped my sheets off. Mother and sisters can attest to the fact that this never sits well with me. It is a personal pet peev and turns me from nice to raging asshole in .3 nanoseconds. Wade gets pissed (like legit pissed). Luckily about a min later Canadian dude came down and diffused the situation a bit. Apparently Adam had laid out the facts a few trickled through his thick skull. He tried to talk to me and explain that if I had told them that we were on Kiwi Exp or something then it would have been OK. He kept talking about shit. I cut him off and told him "hi, i'm on Kiwi, no go the fuck away". This did not sink in. I repeat the idea that I don't want to talk to him and that he needs to leave my bed stat. He eventually takes his pals with and vacates for the night. Kid in the mean time has been hiding under his covers. That's right...hiding under his covers. After this he emerges and tries to make some talk about the situation. The funniest of his statements was along the lines of "I wouldn't of let them hurt you guys. If they come back they will have to go through me before they can get to you" I laugh internally trying not to shatter this poor boys world. He's already voiced that he doesn't want to be here, shouldn't have gone on this tour and wants to go home. He then proceeds to talk to me more. I say one or two comments, and then go full play-dead. He shuts up. Some bad, short sleep and it's 6:45. I hear a bus outside start up. Kid has told me he has to get up at 6 something for his bus, I have to pee. I nicely wake him up, tell him the time. He proceeds to get ready and try to carry out a full conversation with me of Goodbye's even though my entrance to the bed was a full on flop. He talks at full voice and packs noisily. He turns goes to turn in his key. While he's gone a knock at the door. Contiki guide comes and asks me "Hey are there two of you from Kiwi staying in here?" yes "And reception put you in here" yes "and you have keys to this room" (clearly)...yes. He leaves. *Flop* Kid returns and says goodbye. I stupidly have already given him my email in the first hour of the night so he explains that he will email me on Dec 11th blah blah blah....my god what have i done. He proceeds upstairs to wake up Adam and say goodbye and hopefully swap emails. This kid has nerve. Adam deflects gracefully. He takes his wheely bag and leaves. Canadian returns and gathers his things silently, I hear him rummaging about the room and getting things. They both leave.
REJOICE!!!! Adam and I are just victoriously gloating that they are finally gone. My god!! Lemme also explain that our bus doesn't leave till 10am so our thought was go to the bar late, get a nice comfy nights sleep in our sweet place, wake up late, get a nice long hot shower, board bus....All completely ruined by these two. So we get about 1.5 hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep before my 2nd alarm (the "o shit" alarm) goes off to tell me the bus is leaving in 15. We gather and throw on clothes. I go to get my bathing suit off closet door handle where it has been drying and it is GONE! I'm like "surely no...no one steals a bathing suit" i look around thinking it has been misplaced. I look in trashcans thinking that he may have angrily thrown it somewhere else. It is nowhere to be found. The fucker STOLE my bathing suit!!!!
Raragh!!!
I proceed to tell this store about 12x over the next day in between glimpses of sleep on bus and on couches. Luckily while sorting the stuff the day before with Kiwi, they actually gave me a refund for that night too.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Wade gets abandoned at a BP station
Today we headed to Rotorua, one of my more optimistic stops with Zorbing, etc. But, as the story unfolds, was somewhat of a catastrophic failure. The day started off well. We stopped at this town called Matamata. It's the place where all of Hobbiton was filmed in the Lord of the Rings, and they kinda exploit that as a tourist attraction. They have a statue of Gollum on the main drag of this town, for example. Apparently when Peter Jackson was looking for a place to film it, he was flying over in a helicopter with little hope left then finally saw the place. They landed on this man's farm and knocked on his door. He told them to go away because Rugby was on. So they flew into town, grabbed a case of beer and flew back and asked the man if they could join him. Post game gave him the proposal and changed his reluctance with a nice figure on a piece of paper.
We headed on to Rotorua where we stopped at a cultural center. Here we gota cool little presentation, some native food and a quiz at the end of it all where they were giving out little Maori necklaces (kinda touristy but nice, not plastic). I actually got the last one right, so I now have cool spirally bone necklace. (don't judge, and try not to be jealous) We signed up for the cultural dinner for that night were they take you out give you food cooked on hot rocks in the earth and teach you the Haka, sweet! We dropped most of the people off at the Base hostel there (alex, kim and I decided to stay somewhere else) and I went directly from that bus to the bus taking us SLEDGING! (alex and kim took care of my backpack for me)
Sledging was cool. What is is basically going down white water with a glorified boogey board and short fins to propell yourself. Tiring, but fun. Had to do rolls, swim upstream to get where you wanted to go, and other cool maneuvers. The river was pretty cool with nice forrested cliff on each side. The cooler part was "surfing" where basically you paddled into the plunging part of a rapid where the recirculation was as well and basically kick and stay in that spot right on the falls. Very cool. Short trip though. So we headed back got out of those &^#*$ wet suits, played a little volleyball while waiting and headed back to the hostels. The story begins here....
Me and two other girls are signed up for the culutral dinner that night as well. The bus leaves at 7 from where we are supposed to catch it, it's already close to 7. The bus driver of the sledging takes us three to a BP station where the dinner bus is supposed to pick us up on it's way out. Now let me do some intros. The two other girls are from California, more specifically Orange county. They are the DEFINITION of OC. Completely brainless. They shall be collectively known as Californication for the rest of my travels (1 and 2 for distinction of individuals). For an example of the stupidity when I introduced myself to them and they asked which state I was from and I said the Carolinas, Californication 1 responded with (paraphrased) "oh cool, i don't really know where those are but yeah" ......................................WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! maybe Miss Teen SC shoulda been from the OC. So here I am at this BP with these two bimbos (who, as seen from the music in the van, dance like a chickens on LSD after being severely electrocuted). 20 mins pass and I'm starting to think that with 10 min until the dinner starts, we are shit outta luck. I go and ask the BP workers if I can use their phone to call Kiwi since 1) my phone has no credit and no way of recharging it remotely in NZ and 2) Kiwi is the only number I have. Kala, as I've gotten to know her, answers and I explain our situation. She is pretty helpful and makes a few phone calls around and figures out that the bus waited as long as it could at the BP before leaving. So she tries to sort it out saying she's gonna call a cab for us. 10 min later she calls back and reaffirms some of this and says that she's gonna call the cab THEN when we though she had already called. She also informs us that we are going to have to pay for it and get reimbursed ...fine. I inform Californication and #1 is fairly composed about it. #2 goes TOTAL drama queen. We get a cab and this cool Maori woman is talking to us. We get into our current situation and cabbie actually knows a lot about the dinner thing and said that they used to just pay for cabs out there for people, apparently not anymore. Californication 2 decides to unpolitely take out her rage on the cabbie with the valley girl descirption/attutude on what happened..."like we've been sitting outside in the cold and rain for like an hour, and like they could have done something, like god, like we've been sitting outside cold and wet, and like it's cold...like and cold hour like like like...." Rargh!!! Wade KILL stupid girl!!! I maintain composure and try to dampen the conversation. We drop them off at the base and she takes me to my hostel. All the way we make fun of Californication 2 and identify her crazy attitude problem.
I arrive, home sweet home....wait, no...reception is closed and I haven't checked in. I knock on a random window and a girl comes to the door. I ask if reception is closed or if anyone who works there is around...bad news. So I'm homeless, still in a bathing suit smelling like wet suit and river, with only my day pack and no means of communication. So I make out for the Base hostel. I know generally where it is. I figured I can call Kiwi from there and get them to call Rich. What should have been a short 4 block walk was a 30 min wondering in the cold. I stop once for directions...not in english and incorrect...i stop again 10 min later at a hotel. Sweet, i know where I'm going. I head that way stopping at a random Japanese place that has something about terriaki chicken to go on a board outside. starving...i go "ug...that...now". Don't eat it as a place to stay is slightly more important. When I arrive...reception is closed, so I have to go to the bar next door to ask about hostel question. I get stopped by the security guy basically looking at me like I'm crazy trying to get into a bar with a swimsuit, sandals and a backpack. I tell him I need help. I get the phone from the bar. Kiwi is now closed! Joy! Bartender knows that the dinner bus gets back at 10:30, that's only oo....1 hr from now. Fine, I camp outside waiting shovel my food in and grab a beer to chill. I found a lot of others I knew from the bus and told them my wonderful story, even though I smell like shit right now. Time goes on, bus eventually comes back. I pounce on Rich and get him to call Kim. I coordinate with Kim to watch for me to get there and I finally return home. Get there take a REALLY hot LOOONG shower. Toasty and full I feel much better. We then find that this hostel doesn't provide sheets or a duvet. Sweet, top of the night with some cold sleeping. I was actually fine till about 6am where i just tossed my towel on top of me.
My luck runneth thin....
As an addendum, I did eventually get a refund for the dinner and the cab ride...well I'm still waiting on it, and it currently looks like the dinner is charging me twice..but we'll see.
We headed on to Rotorua where we stopped at a cultural center. Here we gota cool little presentation, some native food and a quiz at the end of it all where they were giving out little Maori necklaces (kinda touristy but nice, not plastic). I actually got the last one right, so I now have cool spirally bone necklace. (don't judge, and try not to be jealous) We signed up for the cultural dinner for that night were they take you out give you food cooked on hot rocks in the earth and teach you the Haka, sweet! We dropped most of the people off at the Base hostel there (alex, kim and I decided to stay somewhere else) and I went directly from that bus to the bus taking us SLEDGING! (alex and kim took care of my backpack for me)
Sledging was cool. What is is basically going down white water with a glorified boogey board and short fins to propell yourself. Tiring, but fun. Had to do rolls, swim upstream to get where you wanted to go, and other cool maneuvers. The river was pretty cool with nice forrested cliff on each side. The cooler part was "surfing" where basically you paddled into the plunging part of a rapid where the recirculation was as well and basically kick and stay in that spot right on the falls. Very cool. Short trip though. So we headed back got out of those &^#*$ wet suits, played a little volleyball while waiting and headed back to the hostels. The story begins here....
Me and two other girls are signed up for the culutral dinner that night as well. The bus leaves at 7 from where we are supposed to catch it, it's already close to 7. The bus driver of the sledging takes us three to a BP station where the dinner bus is supposed to pick us up on it's way out. Now let me do some intros. The two other girls are from California, more specifically Orange county. They are the DEFINITION of OC. Completely brainless. They shall be collectively known as Californication for the rest of my travels (1 and 2 for distinction of individuals). For an example of the stupidity when I introduced myself to them and they asked which state I was from and I said the Carolinas, Californication 1 responded with (paraphrased) "oh cool, i don't really know where those are but yeah" ......................................WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! maybe Miss Teen SC shoulda been from the OC. So here I am at this BP with these two bimbos (who, as seen from the music in the van, dance like a chickens on LSD after being severely electrocuted). 20 mins pass and I'm starting to think that with 10 min until the dinner starts, we are shit outta luck. I go and ask the BP workers if I can use their phone to call Kiwi since 1) my phone has no credit and no way of recharging it remotely in NZ and 2) Kiwi is the only number I have. Kala, as I've gotten to know her, answers and I explain our situation. She is pretty helpful and makes a few phone calls around and figures out that the bus waited as long as it could at the BP before leaving. So she tries to sort it out saying she's gonna call a cab for us. 10 min later she calls back and reaffirms some of this and says that she's gonna call the cab THEN when we though she had already called. She also informs us that we are going to have to pay for it and get reimbursed ...fine. I inform Californication and #1 is fairly composed about it. #2 goes TOTAL drama queen. We get a cab and this cool Maori woman is talking to us. We get into our current situation and cabbie actually knows a lot about the dinner thing and said that they used to just pay for cabs out there for people, apparently not anymore. Californication 2 decides to unpolitely take out her rage on the cabbie with the valley girl descirption/attutude on what happened..."like we've been sitting outside in the cold and rain for like an hour, and like they could have done something, like god, like we've been sitting outside cold and wet, and like it's cold...like and cold hour like like like...." Rargh!!! Wade KILL stupid girl!!! I maintain composure and try to dampen the conversation. We drop them off at the base and she takes me to my hostel. All the way we make fun of Californication 2 and identify her crazy attitude problem.
I arrive, home sweet home....wait, no...reception is closed and I haven't checked in. I knock on a random window and a girl comes to the door. I ask if reception is closed or if anyone who works there is around...bad news. So I'm homeless, still in a bathing suit smelling like wet suit and river, with only my day pack and no means of communication. So I make out for the Base hostel. I know generally where it is. I figured I can call Kiwi from there and get them to call Rich. What should have been a short 4 block walk was a 30 min wondering in the cold. I stop once for directions...not in english and incorrect...i stop again 10 min later at a hotel. Sweet, i know where I'm going. I head that way stopping at a random Japanese place that has something about terriaki chicken to go on a board outside. starving...i go "ug...that...now". Don't eat it as a place to stay is slightly more important. When I arrive...reception is closed, so I have to go to the bar next door to ask about hostel question. I get stopped by the security guy basically looking at me like I'm crazy trying to get into a bar with a swimsuit, sandals and a backpack. I tell him I need help. I get the phone from the bar. Kiwi is now closed! Joy! Bartender knows that the dinner bus gets back at 10:30, that's only oo....1 hr from now. Fine, I camp outside waiting shovel my food in and grab a beer to chill. I found a lot of others I knew from the bus and told them my wonderful story, even though I smell like shit right now. Time goes on, bus eventually comes back. I pounce on Rich and get him to call Kim. I coordinate with Kim to watch for me to get there and I finally return home. Get there take a REALLY hot LOOONG shower. Toasty and full I feel much better. We then find that this hostel doesn't provide sheets or a duvet. Sweet, top of the night with some cold sleeping. I was actually fine till about 6am where i just tossed my towel on top of me.
My luck runneth thin....
As an addendum, I did eventually get a refund for the dinner and the cab ride...well I'm still waiting on it, and it currently looks like the dinner is charging me twice..but we'll see.
Wade sleeps in a comfy bed
Today we left for Mercury bay from Auckland and got a new Driver. Meet Rich, the brand spankin' new driver on his maiden voyage south. This was the definition of rough start. So I started the day very slightly hung over and it was magnified 10 fold by this. The music he played was too loud, the bus was too hot, the mic when it eventually worked had a LOT of feedback, the roads he took were curvy with many stops and starts. He spent an extra 30 min or so doing loops trying to figure out where the Kiwi office was. Even when my hangover did go away I was still feeling ill. Joy! (He got much better down the road though). When we did get to the office, we got everyone sorted, I got some much needed water and food.
We eventually got on the road on the way to Mercury bay. We stopped at this place that had an interesting hike over these hills to these really nice secluded beaches with lots of cool cliffs and rocks and a few waterfalls. Very scenic pictures. Cold water though. Not too much to say, the pictures are really where it's at.
We stopped at another spot slightly down the road that was a hike along this beautiful river on the cliff face that was where a lot of mining used to be done. We followed the old mining tracks through the mountain, posed in a mining car, and saw the foundation of where these large mining facilities were. We also had about 30 people on a swing bridge that said max of 10 ppl....and they were jumping...brilliant!
When we finally got to Mercury bay. Alex and Kim and I went to the grocery store to restock then headed to a nice Indian restaurant for dinner. Everyone stayed back and had food at the hostel there. We came back and joined them in a few card games. Learned how to play a game called shithead (similar to asshole in some of the dynamics). Early bed...REALLY REALLY comfy bed. The next morning it was incredibly difficult to get up as the bed was just that comfy, even though the room was like a shed with 2 bunk beds in it.
We eventually got on the road on the way to Mercury bay. We stopped at this place that had an interesting hike over these hills to these really nice secluded beaches with lots of cool cliffs and rocks and a few waterfalls. Very scenic pictures. Cold water though. Not too much to say, the pictures are really where it's at.
We stopped at another spot slightly down the road that was a hike along this beautiful river on the cliff face that was where a lot of mining used to be done. We followed the old mining tracks through the mountain, posed in a mining car, and saw the foundation of where these large mining facilities were. We also had about 30 people on a swing bridge that said max of 10 ppl....and they were jumping...brilliant!
When we finally got to Mercury bay. Alex and Kim and I went to the grocery store to restock then headed to a nice Indian restaurant for dinner. Everyone stayed back and had food at the hostel there. We came back and joined them in a few card games. Learned how to play a game called shithead (similar to asshole in some of the dynamics). Early bed...REALLY REALLY comfy bed. The next morning it was incredibly difficult to get up as the bed was just that comfy, even though the room was like a shed with 2 bunk beds in it.
Wade harvests his own food and gets a cowboy hat
Early morning after the bar. The some of the girls and I decided to go on this cannoing trip called Te Waka this morning. The girls, as they have become regulars are Sarah and Alex(g) (the g is for girl. there is a girl alex, boy alex and my alex...so i'll use g, b, and m to distinguish if in same situation). There were a few others, I think their names are Bambi and Laruen(?) totally wrong on those I'm sure...anyway...
So Te Waka was this trip where we went out on this large cannoe with an outrigger on the water in the Bay of Islands with this big Maori guy named Nick. I got front and was then the pace setter. Was pretty easy paddling with 6. We headed out to this one set of rocks where Sarah and I jumped out with a bucket, swam through the cold water over to them, and hand picked mussles off of the rocks. Kinda hard hanging there with the waves just pushing you around. Fell off a couple times and had a few small cuts, nothing that really mattered. From there we took our harvests over to a small perfect tiny beach. Nick set up a stove and started to cook them up for us while we set off exploring, sitting, and taking pictures. Pretty cool bunch. We had mussles on the half shell compliments of Nick. Very good. Little longer and we packed up and went to other islands. Nick sang a little bit, a few cool Maori songs. Also did a little info/cultural/personal stories about the area. Eg. there are 144 islands in that area, Russell was the first place where Europeans settled (russell was the town across the bay that has the oldest pub, post, bar, hotel, etc. in all of NZ) also used to be a hell hole full of prostitution etc. as that's where sailors went after long voyages. Apparently Nick and his cousin/brothers used to also take these wakas (cannoes) out when they were kids and do the trip we were doing. Fun. Moving along. We did a couple small walks on islands to really cool lookoutpoints with pictures, of course.
When we got back, most of the girls were hungry. I ate the lunch i prepared and headed with them to the cafe next to our hostel. THIS was the perfect end to this day. As we sat there in the semi-shade, there were 3-4 guys with guitars just sitting there having there own little jam session playing songs. They started to play a few others and got some of the local girls they knew to sing the songs instead of themselves. There were two girls that sang, the second had an AMAZING VOICE. the frist girl did give an amazing rendition of sweet home alabama, to give her some credit. It was just nice having some relax time with good music.
The bus left at 3 to go back to Auckland. Seemed like a much longer ride with only one stop. Dan the driver decided to put on a movie at one point and apparently there was a documentary about John Paul II in the player so he put that on for an inordinately long time (long enough for the "seriously?!" to wear off and to get settled into it) then he put on disc 2 of finding nemo which is useless, took that out and put on some NZ movie, the plot being about some stunt driver. Midly eneteraining movie, just annoying because the movie would skip about 10-20 mins occasionally with no filling in of the gaps. This often followed the sequence of drama leading to stunt, prep for stunt........gap.......person dead or disfigured at end of stunt. Fun!
Back in Auckland we check into the Base hostel again. Alex(b) and I grabbed a room together and met Team Canada (married couple named Melissa and Brandan) downstairs, grabbed some food and headed to the bar next to Base (there's always one attached). There was to be $1000 free tab for as long as it lasted...it was gone before we got there. So we had two beers there and decided to make this night a bar hoping night. We headed down to the harbor to some random Irish pub that had a live band on. Good music. I love the fact that Oz and NZ are stuck in the 80's and 90's. It guarantees good music or music you haven't heard in a while but enjoy. I will walk 500 miles is always on everywhere, also recently heard Brimful of Asha again...forgot that song. Anywho...2 beers there, Melissa spotted her roomie from back in College in Canada there with another girl celebrating other girl's b-day. Lemme underline that for you. She spotted a girl she knew really well and hadn't seen in YEARS halfway around the world. (singing) it's a small world afterall!
They join our escapade and we proceed to many more bars. One I got told to leave because I had on sandals, but they didn't really enforce it so we just finished our 1 beer and left. We tried to go next door but that was a fancier place that required collars...who wants to go there anyway?! Then we found the gold mine. Some random bar that had cowboy hats! Yeah, they had hats they were just letting people wear in the bar. We grabbed them, fitted them, grabbed a beer and chilled. That was until 1) Melissa thought it was a good idea to have Jager bombs and 2) there were random girls who were kissing us. Um, it's a shameful story that will be revealed on a nagged basis. There are pics, but they will not be posted. We did manage, however, to steal the cowboy hats with the cunning use of Melissa's jacket! so we wore them the rest of the night
More bars, interesting rejections, a fun walk home with me impersonating Alex(b) and other's English accents badly.
So Te Waka was this trip where we went out on this large cannoe with an outrigger on the water in the Bay of Islands with this big Maori guy named Nick. I got front and was then the pace setter. Was pretty easy paddling with 6. We headed out to this one set of rocks where Sarah and I jumped out with a bucket, swam through the cold water over to them, and hand picked mussles off of the rocks. Kinda hard hanging there with the waves just pushing you around. Fell off a couple times and had a few small cuts, nothing that really mattered. From there we took our harvests over to a small perfect tiny beach. Nick set up a stove and started to cook them up for us while we set off exploring, sitting, and taking pictures. Pretty cool bunch. We had mussles on the half shell compliments of Nick. Very good. Little longer and we packed up and went to other islands. Nick sang a little bit, a few cool Maori songs. Also did a little info/cultural/personal stories about the area. Eg. there are 144 islands in that area, Russell was the first place where Europeans settled (russell was the town across the bay that has the oldest pub, post, bar, hotel, etc. in all of NZ) also used to be a hell hole full of prostitution etc. as that's where sailors went after long voyages. Apparently Nick and his cousin/brothers used to also take these wakas (cannoes) out when they were kids and do the trip we were doing. Fun. Moving along. We did a couple small walks on islands to really cool lookoutpoints with pictures, of course.
When we got back, most of the girls were hungry. I ate the lunch i prepared and headed with them to the cafe next to our hostel. THIS was the perfect end to this day. As we sat there in the semi-shade, there were 3-4 guys with guitars just sitting there having there own little jam session playing songs. They started to play a few others and got some of the local girls they knew to sing the songs instead of themselves. There were two girls that sang, the second had an AMAZING VOICE. the frist girl did give an amazing rendition of sweet home alabama, to give her some credit. It was just nice having some relax time with good music.
The bus left at 3 to go back to Auckland. Seemed like a much longer ride with only one stop. Dan the driver decided to put on a movie at one point and apparently there was a documentary about John Paul II in the player so he put that on for an inordinately long time (long enough for the "seriously?!" to wear off and to get settled into it) then he put on disc 2 of finding nemo which is useless, took that out and put on some NZ movie, the plot being about some stunt driver. Midly eneteraining movie, just annoying because the movie would skip about 10-20 mins occasionally with no filling in of the gaps. This often followed the sequence of drama leading to stunt, prep for stunt........gap.......person dead or disfigured at end of stunt. Fun!
Back in Auckland we check into the Base hostel again. Alex(b) and I grabbed a room together and met Team Canada (married couple named Melissa and Brandan) downstairs, grabbed some food and headed to the bar next to Base (there's always one attached). There was to be $1000 free tab for as long as it lasted...it was gone before we got there. So we had two beers there and decided to make this night a bar hoping night. We headed down to the harbor to some random Irish pub that had a live band on. Good music. I love the fact that Oz and NZ are stuck in the 80's and 90's. It guarantees good music or music you haven't heard in a while but enjoy. I will walk 500 miles is always on everywhere, also recently heard Brimful of Asha again...forgot that song. Anywho...2 beers there, Melissa spotted her roomie from back in College in Canada there with another girl celebrating other girl's b-day. Lemme underline that for you. She spotted a girl she knew really well and hadn't seen in YEARS halfway around the world. (singing) it's a small world afterall!
They join our escapade and we proceed to many more bars. One I got told to leave because I had on sandals, but they didn't really enforce it so we just finished our 1 beer and left. We tried to go next door but that was a fancier place that required collars...who wants to go there anyway?! Then we found the gold mine. Some random bar that had cowboy hats! Yeah, they had hats they were just letting people wear in the bar. We grabbed them, fitted them, grabbed a beer and chilled. That was until 1) Melissa thought it was a good idea to have Jager bombs and 2) there were random girls who were kissing us. Um, it's a shameful story that will be revealed on a nagged basis. There are pics, but they will not be posted. We did manage, however, to steal the cowboy hats with the cunning use of Melissa's jacket! so we wore them the rest of the night
More bars, interesting rejections, a fun walk home with me impersonating Alex(b) and other's English accents badly.
Wade gets harrased by Kiwis
So the next morning we wake up and get on a bus at like 7am. Our driver is crazy. Certifiably crazy. He enjoys randomness, lude jokes, and odd humor. My kinda guy. Some of the jokes he decided to tell over the intercom were ones like "what did cinerella say when she got to the ball"...yeeeah. Cool guy though. pretty laid back. We made our way up north with a few stops including a place that had honey tastings. Random.
Pahia was beautiful. Lot of cool island with nice hillsides and mountainous terrain but with nice grass slopes and such. When we got there we signed up for a few activities and did a small walk around the tiny town. Walked with this young 18yr old Scottish dude that was on his gap year touring. Cool kid. We went on this high powered boat called the Excitor to this cool rock formation doing like 40 knots. The final destination was "the hole in the rock" creatively named because there is a large hole in a rock (actually 2 of them). Sped out there getting rocked a bit, went through it, came back. Exciting...kinda. We then headed on toward our hostel call the Pi Pi Patch (horrible name I know). Got our stuff settled and went down stairs for the bbq they were having and beers to follow. Got to know a couple Swedish guys and a couple brits and canadians a bit better as the beer flowed and rounds continued. The most interesting part was when me and the scotsman were just sitting at a table by ourselves because everyone else has trickled off at this point and 6 kiwis sit down.
These guys are like the loud obnoxious bar type. They do the loud, obnoxious, annoying chat to strange other guys at table with them thing for a while. They left eventually after some time but came back later only to join back in the conversation with strangeness. It's hard to capture them in words. There are pictures of them. One with the ring-leader and the scotsman says it all.
Pahia was beautiful. Lot of cool island with nice hillsides and mountainous terrain but with nice grass slopes and such. When we got there we signed up for a few activities and did a small walk around the tiny town. Walked with this young 18yr old Scottish dude that was on his gap year touring. Cool kid. We went on this high powered boat called the Excitor to this cool rock formation doing like 40 knots. The final destination was "the hole in the rock" creatively named because there is a large hole in a rock (actually 2 of them). Sped out there getting rocked a bit, went through it, came back. Exciting...kinda. We then headed on toward our hostel call the Pi Pi Patch (horrible name I know). Got our stuff settled and went down stairs for the bbq they were having and beers to follow. Got to know a couple Swedish guys and a couple brits and canadians a bit better as the beer flowed and rounds continued. The most interesting part was when me and the scotsman were just sitting at a table by ourselves because everyone else has trickled off at this point and 6 kiwis sit down.
These guys are like the loud obnoxious bar type. They do the loud, obnoxious, annoying chat to strange other guys at table with them thing for a while. They left eventually after some time but came back later only to join back in the conversation with strangeness. It's hard to capture them in words. There are pictures of them. One with the ring-leader and the scotsman says it all.
Wade is stared down by Thai women
Slept in a bit in the morning but decided to go and explore Auckland. Didn't really know what to do so I asked the reception ladies and they suggested going to one of the two islands in the harbor. There was the suggestion of going to one of the islands called Waiheke (kinda like Waikiki, but HEke) and doing a wine olive tour. Headed down to the ferries and grab some b-fast. The ferry was cool but the weather was kinda chilli and overcast. It was about a 30 min ride over and pretty nice surroundings. Nice to be on the water. We boarded this bus driven by one of the leftover hippies from the island and he took us on our wonderful tour.
The tour wasn't nearly as good as the one in Hunter Valley as it was only like two or three wines per place but they took us on a more walking tour of their vineyard which was cool. One called the Mudbrick had a really great lookout over the island. We also stopped at an olive oil place for a while. They showed us how they make the oil, let us taste some and then just let us explore their grounds.
Tour was fun, and took up the afternoon. I headed back and just walked around. Went to the Skytower but didn't go up as I've been in enough of those to last me a while. Decided to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner and made the mistake of doing sit down.
These ladies who ran the place were prolly fresh off the boat. Also sat me in a corner not facing a window only them. They proceed to basically stare me down or keep check on me. I try to make any sort of means of avoiding their stare, but there's only so much to look at as there is only one other couple in the restaurant. Awkward time passes and food comes. My water never reached below the inch mark. I never was able to finish my rice as they kept giving me more. I almost wanted to tip them to kinda back off or something, lol. But it was good. Called it an early night
The tour wasn't nearly as good as the one in Hunter Valley as it was only like two or three wines per place but they took us on a more walking tour of their vineyard which was cool. One called the Mudbrick had a really great lookout over the island. We also stopped at an olive oil place for a while. They showed us how they make the oil, let us taste some and then just let us explore their grounds.
Tour was fun, and took up the afternoon. I headed back and just walked around. Went to the Skytower but didn't go up as I've been in enough of those to last me a while. Decided to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner and made the mistake of doing sit down.
These ladies who ran the place were prolly fresh off the boat. Also sat me in a corner not facing a window only them. They proceed to basically stare me down or keep check on me. I try to make any sort of means of avoiding their stare, but there's only so much to look at as there is only one other couple in the restaurant. Awkward time passes and food comes. My water never reached below the inch mark. I never was able to finish my rice as they kept giving me more. I almost wanted to tip them to kinda back off or something, lol. But it was good. Called it an early night
Wade Goes to NZ
The day has arrived for Wade to go to New Zealand. Woke up and packed my stuff at Alex's place (promptly forgot my shoes as they informed me as I was in a cab heading to Coogee). Went to Coogee and helped Marlis move her and my stuff from her place to Alfreda. Was quite a bit of shit as she was storing my stuff her stuff and a bunch of other stuff she has accumulated from others. Wound up just ordering two cabs to move it all. So then I caught my cab to the airport round 4pm or so.
Got to the airport to stand in a large queue for check-in. When it opened and i got to the front...fun began. The lady asked me for my name and I gave it to her with my passport. She then asks me for my visa. I told her that it's electronic and attached to my passport. She says she needs a printout. I panic slightly, but we move on to point two...the return flight. "Do you have your return flight ticket" "not on me. can you look it up? I think it's with you" "not with us." shit...
I promptly start making a few phone calls to get people to check online for me which it is. Turns out it was jetstar so I head down to to that counter to get a printout. Also realized that Mom so conveniently tucked a copy of my visa in my passport holder. Again, mom knows what's she doing. Went back to counter. Finally got cleared after woman punched in a small novel into the computer. On to Customs!!!
Cleared that fairly quickly, then passed up duty free for the plane. Didn't have much time anymore before flight.
Sat next to this really interesting girl on the flight. She was from the US as I saw her passport as she was sitting down. Struck up a conversation. She currently lives in the OC and hates everything about it, although her alternative where her mother lives is Utah...not much better. She was really into swing dancing and was just coming back from some sort of swing thing in Sydney. Currently she's working as a live in nanny in Auckland so free accommodation and food for a chance to live in NZ. Pretty sweet deal. The conversation really began to pick up upon the conversation switching to movies. We truly connected on the realm of shitty movies. Conversation starter: her, "although i have to say my all time favorite shitty movies are the Tomb Raiders"......YES!!! Conversation follows about litany of movie collections and debates on shittiness or epicness of movies. Good convo overall.
We both wind up being on the same shuttle into the city. Auckland is officially suburbia on crack. It's just endless expanses of suburbia. I got to my hostel around 2am check in and did the whole quietly sneak into hostel room with 7 others sleeping to find that the only bed left is the top bunk and that there's no room on the ground for your stuff. Whatever, i passed out.
Got to the airport to stand in a large queue for check-in. When it opened and i got to the front...fun began. The lady asked me for my name and I gave it to her with my passport. She then asks me for my visa. I told her that it's electronic and attached to my passport. She says she needs a printout. I panic slightly, but we move on to point two...the return flight. "Do you have your return flight ticket" "not on me. can you look it up? I think it's with you" "not with us." shit...
I promptly start making a few phone calls to get people to check online for me which it is. Turns out it was jetstar so I head down to to that counter to get a printout. Also realized that Mom so conveniently tucked a copy of my visa in my passport holder. Again, mom knows what's she doing. Went back to counter. Finally got cleared after woman punched in a small novel into the computer. On to Customs!!!
Cleared that fairly quickly, then passed up duty free for the plane. Didn't have much time anymore before flight.
Sat next to this really interesting girl on the flight. She was from the US as I saw her passport as she was sitting down. Struck up a conversation. She currently lives in the OC and hates everything about it, although her alternative where her mother lives is Utah...not much better. She was really into swing dancing and was just coming back from some sort of swing thing in Sydney. Currently she's working as a live in nanny in Auckland so free accommodation and food for a chance to live in NZ. Pretty sweet deal. The conversation really began to pick up upon the conversation switching to movies. We truly connected on the realm of shitty movies. Conversation starter: her, "although i have to say my all time favorite shitty movies are the Tomb Raiders"......YES!!! Conversation follows about litany of movie collections and debates on shittiness or epicness of movies. Good convo overall.
We both wind up being on the same shuttle into the city. Auckland is officially suburbia on crack. It's just endless expanses of suburbia. I got to my hostel around 2am check in and did the whole quietly sneak into hostel room with 7 others sleeping to find that the only bed left is the top bunk and that there's no room on the ground for your stuff. Whatever, i passed out.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Falls!
Today was another early start. 5am, but well worth it. We got up, packed and got into bathing suits for the day. Easy for me as I just slept in mine from the night before. Too damn hot to put on anything else. We fed and hoped in the truck to go to Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls. We stopped at a bathroom spot before heading into the area with the falls and I switched to the front seat. Why? Because this was the 4WD portion. My god! It was like a 45min long roller coaster. There were bumps, insane turns, rocks, trenches, sand and everything. Puts southern mudding to shame, and could be a roller coaster ride if it just had one loop-de-loop. We headed to Twin Falls first hiking through some crazy rocks to get there after taking a short little ferry. The rocks opened up to this beautiful white beach at the plunge pool for what would have been the falls. But, being the dry season, the falls was only a small trickle. Speaking of trickle, by this point we had a large flow of sweat just rolling off our bodies. My god. Charleston has nothing on this combination of heat and humidity. It was stiffling. It was nice to get up early because we were the first group to Twin Falls so we got a few minutes to ourselves.
We walked back and 4WD more over to Jim Jim Falls. Here the rocks were bigger. It was 900 meters to the falls with the last 300 beging one big rock sramble. It was kinda crazy, but fun. After the long walk there and nearly being soaked from sweat, we were greeted by the massive plunge pool of the falls where we went swimming. Let me discribe this place. Imagine one big horseshoe of a
The one big problem with the weekend was not the heat but the FLIES. OMG!!! Picture (i know this is awful) but like ethiopian kids in comercials that have like 5 flys on their face. Yeah...worse. They were everywhere and on everything and constantly swarming your head. It was rediculous. Half of the energy you spent walk was just swatting.
(more to come later. Have to finish the outback trip posting...for now moving to NZ)
We walked back and 4WD more over to Jim Jim Falls. Here the rocks were bigger. It was 900 meters to the falls with the last 300 beging one big rock sramble. It was kinda crazy, but fun. After the long walk there and nearly being soaked from sweat, we were greeted by the massive plunge pool of the falls where we went swimming. Let me discribe this place. Imagine one big horseshoe of a
The one big problem with the weekend was not the heat but the FLIES. OMG!!! Picture (i know this is awful) but like ethiopian kids in comercials that have like 5 flys on their face. Yeah...worse. They were everywhere and on everything and constantly swarming your head. It was rediculous. Half of the energy you spent walk was just swatting.
(more to come later. Have to finish the outback trip posting...for now moving to NZ)
Kakadu
We woke up and grab some quick showers before heading across the street to where we were supposed to meet the tour group at 6:00am. We seemed to be the only ones that brought all our stuff but it seemed that most people had stored their long-term stuff elsewhere. Our guide Leah was pretty eccentric, funny but crazy...maybe it was the heat. We got into this crazy looking bus van thing and drove...and drove...and stopped in the middle of nowhere...and drove. Rinse wash repeat. Before we got to Kakadu we went on a boat tour around this billabong (typically a river in the wet season, but right now it's all segmented). Saw crocks, cool birds, wallabies, etc. Learned a lot of cool stuff about the land, flora, fauna. Really weird thing we saw along the drive was that most of the forest seemed to have char marks. Apparently the aboriginal people burn the country which helps to keep everything clear, and generally improves the land. Not entirely sure of all the specifics, but lots of cool examples on how it works and how the local wildlife has adapted to it. Also there are HUGE termite mounds everywhere. Stuff about how they help the land, dont hurt trees, make digeridos, grow 1 meter per 10 years, etc.
We got to Kakadu and and drove some more. We went to the visitor center first and watched part of a movie and wondered around. We eventually went to go see some of the rock art and climb up to the top of this lookout. The rock art was cool because of the history behind it. That and our guide told us a lot about the stories and history behind each of the places we saw the art. The lookout was spectacular. Pictures will be posted when I get a chance.
After that we pakced up and headed to our camp. Not much there besides getting settled and getting some food. Pasta! After dinner the girls and I decided to go for a dip as a sort of cleaning off of all the sweat. The campground we stayed at had a pool beside the bar. It was great to just float in the cool water and look up at the stars. Beautiful but I'm expecting better down in Uluru. Sleep...
We got to Kakadu and and drove some more. We went to the visitor center first and watched part of a movie and wondered around. We eventually went to go see some of the rock art and climb up to the top of this lookout. The rock art was cool because of the history behind it. That and our guide told us a lot about the stories and history behind each of the places we saw the art. The lookout was spectacular. Pictures will be posted when I get a chance.
After that we pakced up and headed to our camp. Not much there besides getting settled and getting some food. Pasta! After dinner the girls and I decided to go for a dip as a sort of cleaning off of all the sweat. The campground we stayed at had a pool beside the bar. It was great to just float in the cool water and look up at the stars. Beautiful but I'm expecting better down in Uluru. Sleep...
To Darwin!
So I woke up to call Mike and a few others before heading on a plane ride out to Darwin. Took a while to catch a cab in Coogee but wound up getting a really interesting cabby...very opinionated. Due to a random question about what was on the radio we wound up breaking into a full on discussion of politics and the state of the world. It was interesting and he even wound up giving me a few authors to read. Flight was delayed, as seems to be our luck with JetStar, so I called Sarah to see what her Halloween plans were.
Plane ride was long. Lasted longer than my sleeping desire, which is impressive. The clouds we went through in the last hour were pretty spectacular. Shoulda taken a pic but I didn't. While listening to music I did a small game of cloud shapes, twas fun. We arrived in Darwin only to experience the HELLISH heat. OMG!! More on this later. We checked into our hostel, headed out to see the city. Wound up going down to the Esplanade where we found a small path down to the "beach" (aka 2 feet of sand that was being overtaken by water). It was pretty cool, we wound up staying down there till sunset and it was beautiful! We found some food later at a asian restaurant of some sort and crashed that night. Wake up: 5:00am
Plane ride was long. Lasted longer than my sleeping desire, which is impressive. The clouds we went through in the last hour were pretty spectacular. Shoulda taken a pic but I didn't. While listening to music I did a small game of cloud shapes, twas fun. We arrived in Darwin only to experience the HELLISH heat. OMG!! More on this later. We checked into our hostel, headed out to see the city. Wound up going down to the Esplanade where we found a small path down to the "beach" (aka 2 feet of sand that was being overtaken by water). It was pretty cool, we wound up staying down there till sunset and it was beautiful! We found some food later at a asian restaurant of some sort and crashed that night. Wake up: 5:00am
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