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Monday 4th April
On account of the fact saying goodbye is a bitch me and Ana decided to take our minds off it by heading to Rotorua to play in the white water because its pretty hard to concentrate on anything else when you're sliding over the edge of a 7 metre waterfall in a 4 metre raft. Nothing like near-drowning as a distraction so we jumped on the bus at some ridiculous hour on Easter Monday morning

Not Much Else To Do With Boiling Mud But Look At It

Last time I was in Rotorua I'd done the gondolas, sky swing and 5 luge rides for $60 and they were still offering that deal. The only times Ana had been to Rotorua were for athletics, she could tell you where the track was but didn't have a clue about anything else so we walked from the backpackers thro the park to the gondolas, checking out the geothermal stuff and things on the way. Couldn't tell ya how long this walk would normally take, we dawdled our way there on account of Ana's reluctance to be dragged 50 metres into the air followed by being sent plummeting at 150kph towards the ground on a giant swing. Amateurs. Sheesh.

Here's the thing with the sky swing; it doesnt matter if you've done it before, it doesn't make it any less terrifying as you watch the ground get further and further away, especially when you get to the top and are informed that no one else has any intention of pulling the rip cord.

Fuck.

I didn't have any intention either but someone had to do it, at some point at least one of us was gonna have to change our knickers for a pair with less skid marks and that's nigh on impossible when suspended 50 metres the ground.
Its not that hard once you resign yourself to it and yep, it was a repeat of last time with girly screaming I didn't know I was capable of all the way to the bottom followed by shakey legs and realising you're still holding onto the rip cord like it was going to save your life. SO much fun!

Lets face it, there's no dignified way to get on a luge no matter how much practice you've had, you'll always resemble a crippled foal trying to learn to walk assuming foals were less cute and wore pink helmets. And normally I don't like to talk competition (usually because I lost) but I kicked Ana's arse in every race down the hill though there was one point where I was waiting at the bottom for a good few minutes wondering what possessed me to bring my accident prone girlfriend to a place where I'd previously lost a small portion of my skin. Just as I was about to walk back up the track to find her with visions of mangled luge and the staff finding the pink helmet hanging from a tree three days later she came trundling around the corner complaining of bad brakes so she had to take it really easy.

With the images of roadkill gone I continued my winners gloating and finished all the tracks without adding to my fine collection of scars.

Tuesday 5th April
The life of a backpacker can be pretty hectic at times, if you're not scaring the fuck out of yourself on a giant swing you're dragging yourself out of bed at god awful hours to be picked up and taken to the next place where you'll be scaring the fuck out of yourself. In this case, white water rafting. Bring it the fuck on!

Ana was shitting herself and I don't think her mother will ever forgive me for taking her here but what the hell, the rafting I did in Queenstown was cool but I'd heard this one, the Kaituna river, was the best in the country with the biggest commercially raftable waterfall. The aforementioned 7 metre beast. Hehehe, I couldn't wait.
To add to the trauma we were advised that Kai meant food and Tuna meant eel in Maori, the river thus named for the abundance of eels which made it an awesome food source (if, indeed, you can bring yourself to put eel in your mouth) and it was in fact eel mating season which left Ana worrying about exactly what your legs looked like in a tight, black wetsuit while you were in the water.

Potential drowning and eel rape aside, it was fucking amazing. The four other girls in the raft were dragon boat rowers so their timing was perfect which left us free to concentrate on staying alive. There are three waterfalls, the first two are big enough to whet your appetite but not big enough worry about tipping. Then comes the one we'd all been waiting for. They do give you the chance to get off the raft and walk round but where's the fun in that?
We got into position and watched the first raft go over the edge. They were gone for ages, they'd tipped at the bottom, apparently this happens about one in 6 times but they righted themselves and then it was our turn. A few good paddles from the Asian girls and scared attempts at paddling from us then it was hold on and get down and over we went, totally vertical until we hit the bottom of the falls, went under and emerged upright. Purely because we're awesome of course.

Yay-yah!

We were bussed back to base where we got an hours break then no sooner had we got the feeling back into our fingers it was time for white water sledging. People who have read this before will know that me an our kid did river boarding in Queenstown. Sledging is easier, instead of having a body board with a bit of cord that you have to cling to whilst maintaining a pose that your left arm will never forgive you for, you have two good hand holds and a plastic thing much more suited to going over rapids. The basic rules are "hold the hell on" and "turn your head." Turn you head when going over the rapids in case the sledge jolts up to meet your head when you hit the water. Teeth are impossible to find in moving water.
And no, you're not sent over the waterfalls. That'd be pushing the adrenalin levels even for me, I like to live life on the edge but only when I'm harnessed to a safety rope and there's a team of trained professionals on hand to make sure I don't die.

And what better way to finish off a day in Rotorua than with a huge all you can eat feed at Valentines where I ate til I had to be rolled to the Polynesian Spa. We spent the evening cooking ourselves in hot water til we headed back to the backpackers for another early night.

The Only Way To Finish The Day

See Ana, beware of dating people that much older than you. Some of us just can't take the pace.

written by

Koala Bear on April 7, 2010 from Rotorua, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip

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