Adventures in middle earth!

So we have successfully completed our first week in New Zealand and it has been amazing! After our crazy plane adventure from Indonesia, we finally arrived in windy Wellington at around 9:00 pm on March 11th. There was a bit of confusion finding our rental car, but we found it and crashed at the first hostel we found in downtown Wellington (as in slept, not car crashed). The next day, we headed to the Te papa museum, which is the national museum of New Zealand, it was super cool and as a bonus, it was free! We couldn’t believe that it was free! This place was massive! The only unfortunate thing was that we were exhausted. I don’t think I have ever felt the exhaustion that I felt that day, and it was a bit frustrating because there was a lot to see! After our museum expedition, we headed back to our hostel and had a long nap, and then had a bite to eat before going back to bed.

The next morning, we had an early start on the road to Turangi, which is a small town in the centre of the north island about 45 minutes south of Taupo. We decided to take the long and scenic route as suggested by a bartender we met in Wellington. We drove straight to Napier, through some of the country’s densest winery area, which is on the east coast. But there was no whining coming from us! (I’m soooo funny) It was incredibly gorgeous. We stopped in the art deco city of Napier for about an hour for a coffee and a break, and then we continued on to Taupo and Turangi. We arrived in Turangi at around 4:00 and checked into the Turangi Leisure Lodge after 8 hours on the road. I can hardly describe how amazing it was to walk through the door and realize that this was our accommodation for the next week. After nearly 6 months of living as backpackers, we were in disbelief that we have the opportunity to stay in a 2 level, fully equipped, private lodge. When you walk in the door, you see a kitchen to your right, a dining room and living room on the left and staircase leading to a master bedroom. There is a second bedroom and another bathroom with a Jacuzzi on the main floor, two TVs, a dishwasher, a stove, fridge and a car park. Nice! Thanks so much Jean-Louis and Carole! Words can’t describe how good it feels to be able to relax here!

Our adventures started the next day! We headed to Tongariro National Park and went on a seriously beautiful 2-hour walk. On that walk we saw some amazing scenery, including the volcano that was Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings and a gorgeous waterfall! It was nice to be in the wilderness for a nice hike! Later the same day, we went on another short walk to see a second waterfall, and after that we went for a drive down a secluded dirt path to see some caves, and that was very cool. The next day, we went to Rotorua to a thermal area called “Hell’s Gate”. We started by going on a thermal walk, and saw some boiling mud, hot springs and mud volcanoes, which was totally amazing. After that, we went to the mud spa that they have there. First, we went into a private mud bath, which was fantastic! It was pretty much like playing in the mud, but with more hot water. It was so nice. You can rub mud on your arms and legs and bathe in the water for 20 minutes, and when that is over, you get to have a lovely cold shower, and go into the hot spring pool for as long as you want. It was so nice. We both had gotten a cold from all the travel and exhaustion, so it was nice to be in the warm hot springs. We went for sushi after that, and then went to the Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland. We did a 1.5 hour walk and saw more thermal pools and boiling mud, and we saw craters that had been formed by subterranean waterways, we saw some ink pots (small thermal pools that have an ink-like color because of graphite and crude oil that has been brought up with the water) and the last thing we saw there was a huge hot spring that was bright lime green. I have never seen anything natural that color before! It was incredible! Later that afternoon, we saw Huka falls. There were actually some kayakers on the water that day, and it was so cool to watch them kayak through the rapids and then down the waterfall.

The next day was an adventure! We drove to the Waitomo caves. The Waitomo caves are the most visited glowworm caves in New Zealand. There, we signed up for what they call the “Black Abyss”. First, all geared up in a wetsuit, boots, helmet and harness, we learned to abseil. Abseiling is lowering yourself on rope while in a harness. After completing a quick training session, we abseiled down 35 meters through a narrow opening in the ground that led to the top of a cave cathedral, which was the beginning of the Ruakuri cave. I’m scared of heights, so I was a bit nervous, but that made the experience more exhilarating! Once we all got to the bottom safely, we continued deeper into the pitch black cave (luckily we had the lights on our helmets!) where there was a zip line! We all turned off the lights on our helmets and took a turn to zip line in the pitch black with glowworms above us. Our guides did everything in their power to heighten our fears by making crashing noises and screaming! Of course I fell for it. Hilarious! So after that, we all sat on the edge of a 4-meter drop into the water for a quick snack, and then they handed us each a tube. They then instructed us to jump from those 4 meters, bum first into the freezing water. I didn’t like that idea at all, but it’s not like I could turn back, so I did it and got a face full of ice cold water. It was terrible! But I got over it, and it was all good fun! We then walked upstream further into the cave and had to swim in parts that were too deep. Once we arrived to where the guides were leading us, they made us form a chain on our tubes by grabbing each other’s feet, and then we turned off our lights and drifted silently through the cave, watching the beautiful glowworms on the ceiling. When we turned on our lights again, we threw our tubes up on the ledge that we jumped from, and continued to swim downstream, grabbing on to whatever we could. We then arrived at a waterslide that had been built over a small waterfall, and we each took a turn sliding down head first! After that, we continued exploring the caves and swimming through narrow passages that eventually led us behind a huge waterfall. We had to swim around it and then the guides instructed us how to climb the waterfall by ourselves. It was challenging and super fun! The hardest part was that our wetsuits and boots were already weighed down by water, and the waterfall was also pushing against us, but we all made it up! After that waterfall, we walked for a while and got to a second, almost as challenging waterfall, and ascended that as well. At the top was the opening to outdoors. We were all a bit cold and wet but mostly just excited! It was such an amazing experience! We all got changed and had some warm soup together and checked out the photos of our adventure before hitting the road again. We came back to the timeshare and headed straight for the hot tub and relaxed for the rest of the night.

For the next day (Tuesday) we had booked ourselves for some white water rafting fun! The nearby Tongariro River is a class 3 rapid and we thought it would be a good idea to try to raft it, adding to my list of firsts. It was such a blast! We all got wet and got to plunge off a small cliff into the river half way down our rafting trip. The experience was not as frightening as I thought it would be but did not disappoint. We saw some amazing scenery as we rafted through serious rapids in the light rain and we really felt like we were right in middle earth. We have been staying away from the cheesy lord of the rings tourist attractions but come on, this place is middle earth and it’s awesome! After rafting for two hours down 9 km of river, descending 250 vertical meters of rapids (not all at once obviously), we headed back to ground base for some sandwiches and then back home. We have been shopping at the grocery store and making our own meals in our very own kitchen! So we had a quiet evening eating soup and relaxing in the rec. room playing ping pong. Yeah!

Okay now for Wednesday! Yay! Wednesday was very nerve-racking day because I did something I never thought I would do! Skydiving! Yes mom you heard me! I thought I would tell you after I already did it to save you the stress! Haha! Anyway! We arrived at the skydiving place, filled out some forms and got suited up. I was absolutely terrified the entire time, it was ridiculous. I was so excited though! But wow, I have never been so scared to do anything! After a quick talk with our tandem guides, we headed for the plane (there were 6 of us that skydived). The ascent was so beautiful! We got to see lots of the Taupo area and surrounding scenery! I admit though that I was too paralyzed from fear that I didn’t get to fully appreciate it. I got teamed up with an awesome tandem instructor, and he did a good job winding me up and telling me stories to get me even more scared. So we finally got to a height of 15 000 feet, and it was time to jump! I jumped second last (Jean-Michel was last! Sucka!). First, I had to scoot up to the open door of the plane and dangle my legs over the edge into the nothingness below. !!! Ahh! Then I had to humiliate myself and get a picture taken before I plunged to the depths. I leaned back and we pushed off into the sky and did a somersault in the air before we began a 60 second freefall through the sky and clouds! I have never felt anything so terrifying and exciting in my life! We were falling at full speed through the sky toward the ground and the cold air rushing in my face made it hard to breathe, but once I got over the initial shock of falling out of a plane, I enjoyed the ride! My tandem instructor (Mike) released the parachute at 5000 feet and we floated the rest of the way to the ground! The view was incredible and the feeling was even better! Of course he pretended he was going to unhook me and send me to my death but obviously he was just having a laugh. He let me control the parachute for a while and we went in fast spirals to the ground and eventually landed safe and sound back on the ground. It was such a freaking awesome experience! DO IT!

So now we are enjoying our last day in Turangi at our amazing timeshare. We are so sad that it is the last day here! But there are more exciting things to come and we are heading north first thing tomorrow morning to explore it all over the next 2 weeks before heading back to the ice cube that is Canada!

We love you and miss you! Don’t hate me for not telling you about skydiving mom! Haha!
Until next time!

Lisa and Jean-Michel

written by  jeanmichelisa on March 18, 2009 from Turangi, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Australia, Bali and New Zealand adopt Jean-Michel and Lisa!
Send a Compliment

comment on this...