THAILAND!!! So far...

Well, we have taken the step into a completely different traveling experience and are loving it. We flew into Bangkok on the 1st, despite the travel warnings. Fortunately we barely witnessed any evidence of the protests, besides the army very carefully guarding the airport (thank god for that). However, we limited our stay in Bangkok to one night just in case. When we arrived we headed to Th Khao San, which had a ton of guest houses, travel agencies, vendors and restaurants. We got in at about 8 pm on a Friday night, and there was a music festival at the time with bands playing on a stage, so it was packed! Too bad it was 3am NZ time so we were too tired to really go out and enjoy it.

We found a cheap guest house down a little alley, which seemed pretty trustworthy and clean. And for the most part it was,...although shortly after lying on our beds, Mike came across a bug. I haven't seen bed bugs before, but I had an idea what they looked like and that was it. We tried sleeping anyway, but I soon felt a bug crawl on my hand. I turned on the lights and sure enough it was, and Mike found several crawling on his bed - gross!!!! I ran downstairs and asked for another room. The girls who worked there seemed very surprised and apologetic, and gave us another room which turned out to be perfectly fine. Thank god. Guess you get what you pay for!

Bangkok was a huge, sprawling city. Th (Th=thanon=street) Khao San was pretty cool, although it smelled pretty bad. We didn't like getting constantly harassed by tuk tuk drivers and suit taylors, but other than that it wasn't bad. Lots of cool little stores and things. Still tons of tourists there, despite the Bangkok situation. We caught a flight the next afternoon to Chiang Mai, up in Northern Thailand. So far we are loving Chaing Mai. Have been here for 3 days, and planning on staying a couple more. Chiang Mai is pretty much the cultural capital of Thailand, and even Thai people come here to pay their respects to the temples. We went on a tuk-tuk tour of some of the temples yesterday.

They were so gorgeous, with red carpet, painted murals and huge gold buddha statues. Most were built 700 years ago when the city was built. The monks in/around the temples wear orange robes and have shaved heads. The land around the temples was gorgeous too, with lots of trees, gardens and grassy areas. Would be a nice place to live!

Chiang Mai is a very pretty city, much smaller and cleaner than Bangkok. The city centre was built in a symmetrical square shape, with a square canal surrounding it.

We are staying just inside the canal in a very cheap guest house - 200B = $6-7 for the two of us in a double room with private bathroom! It was such a good deal compared to the 500 B air conditioned rooms in other places, we decided to rough it and go for the fan, hoping to acclimatize to the ridiculously hot weather here. It actually really isn't that bad at night, although the days are roasting - about 40 degrees! Yes, we are already in the mindset of the currency here, and have turned down $12 AC'd rooms haha.

First night we arrived there was a very cool market with people from all over Northern Thailand selling their crafts. I admit I already bought a few souvenirs... We also went to the "Night Market" last night, which had hundreds of vendors all selling the same sorts of fake brand name stuff...not really our cup of tea, although I bought some COMFY "burkenstock" sandals for $6 which were amazing after all the blisters I had acquired that day from my cheap flip flops! It's actually a bit sad though, a lot of the vendors at the night market seemed extremely desperate to sell stuff, since Thailand has been taking such a hit in the tourist industry due to the protests :(. The taxi driver who picked us up in Bangkok said he had to wait 4 hours before getting a fair. So sad. It makes me feel pretty bad bargaining them down to lower prices, although they always start ridiculously high. Mike wanted to buy a really ugly, cheap digital watch and the guy tried to start at about $20! I guess they have to though.

Today we did a full day Thai cooking class. It was so fun! First they took us to the local market and showed us where to buy all the ingredients they use for cooking and some of the local fruits.

Then we went back to their kitchen and got to make 7 delicious meals/meal components...finishing the day with VERY full, satisfied stomachs! We made a curry paste and then used that to make a curry dish, a noodle dish (I made pad thai), spring rolls, a DELICIOUS prawn/coconut milk soup, a stir fry (Mike-chicken cashew/me-chicken with basil), and mango with coconut milk dessert. We got to try some very tasty fruits too, including rambutan and longan, which I believe are in the lychee family. Even I liked them. Mike didn't finish the day off so well though...got another allergic reaction and completely broke out in hives! This time it hit his face first, which swelled to about 3 times the size and turned red :(. Poor guy. Fortunately I had allergy meds with me in case something like this happened, so I gave it to him right away. We really think it was the prawns, because that is what he ate right before. Don't worry, he's ok now! Just took a few hours for the hives to go away. No more prawns for him.

Other things about Thailand...the people are very friendly and the girls are gorgeous. We see "sex tourists" all over the place, i.e. gross old men with Thai hookers :S. They're always in the pubs. The showers usually consist of a hand held nozzle that just hangs somewhere near the toilet. It's like on sail boats, sink space=toilet space=shower space. ie there's no designated shower space. Fortunately we've only encountered flush toilets so far, but you can't flush TP down the toilet here, you have to put it in a garbage by the toilet. But that's probably just an option there for Westerners...I think the Thais normally rinse off with the water from the nozzle.

Today we went on a day "trek" to the jungle about an hour outside of the city. First we got to ride on an elephant, which was pretty cool, although the elephants did not seem to like having people riding on them. They kept stopping and occasionally sprayed us with...spit? I hope they aren't unhappy/treated poorly... Since our little seat on our elephant was leaning precariously to one side, eventually the driver guy got off and let me take his place. I got to ride right on the elephant's head/neck area!!! Then we went on a "hike" up to a local Hmong hill tribe, along a dirt road that turns out tons of other tour buses drove up/down. So it wasn't that great, as there were tons of other tour groups and so we weren't really seeing the authentic tribe lifestyle. They lived in little bamboo huts. The tribe originated in China I think.

Then we continued to hike to a waterfall swimming hole, which was very refreshing and quite nice. Our favourite part was when we got to go on a one hour bamboo raft down the river. It turns out our "captain" was a ten year old boy...and he turned out to be a pro! There were lots of other rafts because it was a Thai holiday celebrating the king, and apparently it's a pretty popular pastime (Thai equivalent to canoe/air mattress trips with coolers full of beer). Other boats were getting stuck in the rapids all over the place but our little captain steered us right through!

We visited one more hill tribe called the Karen. They live in stilt houses so that in rainy season their livestock can take cover underneath. The roofs were made of leaves found in the jungle, and I think the rest was bamboo. When we were there we saw a pig with little piglets, and lots of chickens with little chicks - so cute! Oh, also saw a baby elephant that was adorable. That wasn't at the tribe though.

Have really enjoyed Chang Mai, but tomorrow we are moving on to Pai!

Last of NZ

Not too much to add, but last morning in Queenstown we went to the Kiwi Birdlife Park, because I decided that I didn't want to leave NZ without seeing a kiwi. It was worth it. They are soooo funny! They are like bumbling little brown, furry round soccer balls with long pointy beaks. The whole time we watched, this one just walked back along the wall, poking his beak into the ground. It was really funny. The Keas were also funny. They are large, cheeky parrots who are very intelligent (comparable to monkeys) and are capable of biting through rubber/other materials and destroying things such as windshield wipers (we watched one chew a large hole in a milk carton).

As rain was the forecast for Mt Cook, we instead headed to Dunedin to go up the east coast. At Dunedin we went to Cadbury World...i.e. the CHOCOLATE FACTORY!!! It was so cool. And we got a big bagful of free chocolate. But I have decided that the Kiwi chocolate bars aren't as good as the Canadian ones, as they don't have any peanut butter ones and prefer marshmallow filling. Boo.

We also went on a ridiculous drive through the Otago Peninsula (a weird outcropping of land by Dunedin), following roads on a Lonely Planet map that turned out to be crazy hilly gravel roads through farmer's sheep fields..(shhhhh our camper wasn't supposed to drive on those)...how nice of LP to post a map of small, ridiculous gravel roads through Otago Peninsula, even though it couldn't provide a decent map of Dunedin... Anways we were looking for this "chasm" that was supposed to be really cool. We finally arrived there, and we had to walk 15 minutes right through a farmer's land, scaring all the sheep along the way, and eventually reached the chasm. It was kind of like a canyon type thing right by the ocean. It was fairly mediocre. Quite the adventure though.

We continued on to Omarua the next day and saw PENGUINS!!! Yayyyy. Cute little blue penguins. They were so cute. We watched them come up from the sea in groups of about 12, wait cautiously to see if it was safe, and then scurry into their little homes/nesting areas on land. We even saw two of them fighting, likely over a female or a nesting area, and we saw two mating...ewww haha. They were soooo cute though.

Back in Christchurch now, said goodbye to our lil camper. Flying out to Auckland tomorrow for our last day in NZ!!

Queenstown and Fiordland

We had went on what turned out to be a very luxurious overnight cruise through Doubtful Sound. Doubtful Sound is basically a very long, narrow inlet from the ocean, surrounded by very steep, high mountains. All the "sounds" (actually fiords) were carved out by glaciers. The weather was very misty and quite wet when we were there, which gave the narrow sound a very mysterious look. It was so cool. When it rained, waterfalls poured down the cliffs surrounding because the water had no other place to collect higher up. At one point during the cruise we got to go out on kayaks, which gave a really cool perspective of the sound and also allowed us to go up right underneath some of the waterfalls! We also went for a quick dip in the ocean after...fortunately our boat had hot showers for afterwards! There was lots to see/do on the cruise...stopped by a huge seal colony, the boat drove right up under an overhang and someone filled up glasses of water from the waterfall gushing over the overhang (it tasted fresh and cold, although it was a bit brownish in colour...which apparently is due to the water "steeping" like tea in all the rainforest vegetation it passes through), and Mike and I definitely ate our money's worth of the delicious food that continually flowed out of the kitchen. We also met an Israeli couple and hung out with them the whole time. It was really fun.


After the cruise, we drove partway up to Milford Sound on the long, twisty road, and camped at one of the little sites on the side of the road. In the morning, despite the weather warning for Milford, we went on a 1 and 1/2 hour cruise of the sound. It was POURING. We were soaked from the walk over from the parking lot. My jeans took 2 days to dry. The cruise was actually really fun even though the visibility was poor, since there were TONS of waterfalls everywhere and the wind was so crazy it was actually really fun to stand out on the deck...winds were up to 140 km/h! And the water was very rough. It was so windy, in fact, that some of the waterfalls were actually being blown UPWARD. I have never seen such a thing, and probably never will again.

The weather turned out to be not so fortunate in the end, because the long road out of Milford was closed down for most of the afternoon. The waterfalls all throughout had washed over the roads, carrying big chunks of rock and gravel. We had to wait for 5 hours before the roads reopened and we could drive out in a convoy. We were sitting in a cafe that whole time with many other stranded people, and when someone came in and said "if you want out, go now. the roads are opening briefly" everyone cleared out soooo fast and literally ran to their cars. Including us. It was really funny. We all had thought we would be stranded until the next morning at the earliest, so it was great news.

Back at Queenstown...it was still raining. Not much exciting news to update you on there. Oh wait, we went to the craziest indoor mini golf course I have ever played on. For example, one hole literally had mini chairlifts that took your ball up a ski hill structure, where your ball rolled down and fell into one of three holes, which took it to some other location...it was crazy. We also went to some cute little theatre in Arrowtown to watch Boy, a Kiwi movie about a Maori kid. It was pretty good.

Not sure where we'll be heading next...our plan originally was to go to Mt Cook, but apparently that sucks in the rain so we may have to reroute. Then on to Christchurch where we fly back to Auckland, and then fly out again to SE Asia!

The South Island so far

Mike and I have been on the road since April 16 in our own little camper home! We found a great deal so we ditched the tour bus idea to go explore the island on our own. The camper is really great...it's got a stove, fridge, comfy bed and everything...even got a toaster! No toilet, which I am fine with as it would be very gross to empty. We've mostly been staying in campgrounds (Mike likes to be plugged in so we can use the heater haha, it gets fairly cold at night), although I found a sweet parking lot near a bathroom at one point hehe. That was when the only campground around was $38. Forget that!


So far in the South Island we've spent one night in Christchurch, where we didn't do much besides eat a gross Chinese dinner and I frantically ran around buying Mike's bday presents lol...hard when you're never apart! We left pretty much right away to drive north to Kaiteriteri, where we did a kayak/hiking trip through the Abel Tasman National Park. It was very beautiful, great weather. In 2 hours of kayaking we saw a huge group of seals lounging on rocks, including a mother nursing a baby and two young ones play fighting, many gorgeous sandy beaches and coves and cool rock formations and caves that you could kayak into! Mom you would love it! For the rest of the journey we hiked, stopping over in a hut for one night.



The hike wasn't quite as exciting, although it was still very pretty, passing through nice beaches, and had very nice viewpoints of the beaches. The one funny part was there were a couple of low tide routes (to hell if we're going the long way around for the high tide route! an extra hour and a half!) where you had to take off your shoes, walk through a giant stretch of mud covered in crabs and clam shells

and wade through washouts from the ocean. The beaches there were crazy...when the tide was out there were tons of boats just sitting stranded on the sand, and when the tide came in it came wayyyy in to places you would not think it could make it to! The afternoon of the second day, we caught a water taxi back to the starting point. To our surprise, the boat drove right up on to a trailer pulled by a tractor, and we were given a ride back to our camper! It was hilarious. That is the only time we will ever ride in a boat on land.

After Abel Tasman we drove down the west coast, stopping in various cute towns along the way such as Hokitika and Greymouth, which had cute little shops which I enjoyed. We camped at Punakaiki and in the morning went on a walk to see the Pancake Rocks - absolutely amazing, layered rock formations on the coast (looked like precariously stacked pancakes!)




We also explored this cave to the side of the road, which was very cool, even though our only light devices were a dying head lamp and a small MEC LED light. We had to take pictures with a flash to see what was in some parts haha.

We proceeded down the coast to Fox Glacier (we decided to skip Franz Joseph, as it is harder to access cheaply/without going on an expensive tour). We were able to walk to within 80 m of Fox Glacier.

It was quite cool looking (ha ha), although we've seen better in Canada :). We also tried to go sky diving again but too cloudy. Thus, we continued on to Wanaka. The drive along the west coast was absolutely stunning. And if you think driving the Sea to Sky is crazy, just wait til you drive NZ roads. So much fun to drive...VERY curvy. And they don't seem to like building two lane bridges here either. They're all one ways. In Wanaka we stayed in a very beautiful lake front campground. We went to this VERY cool movie theatre called Cinema Paridiso, which had all sorts of old comfy couches and chairs to sit in, fresh baked big cookies during intermission and homemade icecream. We watched a Swedish subtitle crime movie that was really good. I absolutely loved the cinema.

The next day we....finally went sky diving!!! The views around Wanaka were GORGEOUS. Beautiful blue lakes, dry hillsides and huge, jagged mountains. And the sky diving itself was so exhilerating. We were super excited and it was even better than we hoped it would be. We jumped from 12000 metres and had about 45 seconds of free fall, followed by a couple minutes of parachuting to the ground, and on the way down we got to do cool 360s and such. It was amazing.




Now we are in Queenstown, finally getting some internet time. Many more exciting adventures to come, including jet boating and exploring the Sounds! Can't wait! More updates soon!

Matamata, the Bay of Plenty, and another unfortunate stopover in Taupo, followed by Wellington

While we were staying over at Gay and Bill's Mike and I took a brief road trip out to Matamata and the Bay of Plenty. In Matamata we went on a Hobbiton tour...which was a bit overpriced for what it was, but still kind of neat. Hobbiton, or the Shire from Lord of the Rings, was mainly filmed on this giant sheep farm in Matamata. They took down/destroyed most of the set for copyright purposes, but left the remains of the hobbit hole structures. We got to walk in Bilbo Baggin's hobbit hole hehe. Even though it didn't have any of the original decoration it was still kind of cool to see the little homes built into the hillside. They threw in a sheep show thing at the end for some reason, and I got to feed a lamb. It was very hungry. Reminded me of Mike and I.


We then proceeded to the Bay of Plenty/ east coast. We went to lots of gorgeous beaches there. The ones in Mt Manganui and Ohope were our favourite, and I especially loved them because there were toooonnnnns of amazing shells to collect there. Which I may not be allowed to take through airports, but I will try to find a way around that. So far successful.

Ohope beach

A couple days later Dan and his wife Jan came to pick us up on their way to Wellington, where they live. However, the car's alternator died and we were left stranded in Taupo for yet another night while we wated for repairs. We had good company, so it was fun anyway :). Mike and I got to ride in the car on top of the tow truck. We even signed up for sky diving yet again for kicks, but ended up leaving before our reservation for Wellington. No more waiting around for sky dive Taupo.

We stayed with Dan and Jan and their family in Wellington for 3 nights, and had a really fun time there. They are just like the Vancouver Stickneys...very laid back, great sense of humour and fun to be around! We had some fun dinners and movie nights with Dan, Jan, their two daughters Beck and Kim and two Thai kids staying with them, Pecky and Mark. We watched some good kiwi flicks including the Whale Rider, In My Father's Den and the hilarious Eagle vs Shark with Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords.

Wellington and the surrounding areas were gorgeous...there was TONS of waterfront area since there were so many inlets and out-croppings of land. It was very hilly and VERY windy. Houses were built on the edge of steep hills with no road access, so you had to either had to walk up steep staircases or have tram things up to your house! Jan and Pecky showed us around a bit. We went to WETA, which is the studio

where they do basically anything creative for movies such as Lord of the Rings and Avatar, i.e. make costumes, computer animation, props, miniatures, makeup, etc. That was cool. We also went to the museum there, Te Papa, which was very interesting. Sort of reminded me of the museum in Victoria. The best in NZ.

We had a lot of fun in Wellington and were sad to leave :( but it was time to move on to the South Island, so we had to say good bye to the Stickneys. We caught the ferry over to Picton on the South Island and then took a train along the coast to Christchurch.

Tongariro, Taupo and Rotorua

Well...this is long overdue, but here it is!

Tongariro

After the caves Mike and I headed down to National Park and stayed at this awesome old ski lodge hostel called Skihaus! The hot tub came in handy after our long hike in Tongariro National Park! I actually convinced Mike to go on what we thought was an 8 hour hike called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It was quite an amazing hike. The whole area was full of volcanoes (a few are sometimes active!) and so most of the hike was over barren land, up the sides of volcanoes and along the edge of craters such as the Red Crater,

which was a very cool red colour. One volcano we hiked past, Ngaurahoe, was Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings! It was a perfect cone shape and looked very dark and foreboding – a perfect choice for the movie! We originally had thought we wouldn’t have time to climb it, as we thought the hike might take us 8 hours and we had to make a shuttle at the other the end. However, the hike ended up taking us 6 ½ hours (including a very long stop at a hut for lunch!) so we were a bit disappointed we didn’t do it. Maybe next time in NZ! Other sites on the hike…lots of sulfur gas leaking from the sides and craters of the volcanoes (stinky!) and very beautiful blue lakes. I reallly enjoyed the hike and I think Mike may even have enjoyed it too (although he probably won’t admit it later!) I was sad we didn’t have time to do more hikes, but alas we had to keep move along…

Taupo…

…was pretty much a waste of time. We essentially waited here for sky diving, calling every couple hours for updates from a pay phone since we don’t have a cell with us, for a full day. And we tried the next day too, although we didn’t let it ruin our plans this time. The weather was either too cloudy, or sunny but too windy…very frustrating. Taupo itself was a fairly small town on the edge of a giant lake (which is actually the crater of a volcano!) and unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot to do there at the time we were there, as it was a bit too cold to go swimming in the lake and that sort of thing. But I am sure it would be a very fun place in summer or winter for skiing. We spent a lot of time in a cheap internet café we found one night.



The second morning there, however, we went on a bit of a hike to a very cool hot water stream near Huka Falls (which weren’t too impressive, although the sheer volume of water that flowed over them was). There were several natural, rocky pools joined by waterfalls you could sit in or stand under, and it flowed into a cold river so you could swim in there to cool off! They all had different temperatures, but some parts (especially sitting in one of the falls) were as hot as a very hot hot tub. I’m gessing 104 degrees? We spent a fair bit of time there relaxing/swimming. There are tons of thermal pools and streams in NZ…the whole place is basically a giant volcano waiting to erupt! It’s really interesting.

Rotorua

We met Mike’s uncle Dan in Rotorua and stayed with some of his friends there, Gay and Bill. They lived on a gorgeous lake front property just across the lake from Rotorua, on Maori land. They had a gorgeous view of the lake from their living room, a huge yard with a beach and a vegetable garden that produced tons of delicious veggies! Gay made the most delicious meals with the fresh veggies. We were very lucky to stay there. Bill is Maori and it was a very neat cultural experience for us. Rotorua is sort of like the centre of Maori culture in NZ. Because of Gay and Bill’s connections, we got a good deal on river rafting with a Maori company and an amazing deal on a Hangi (basically the Maori version of a Hawaiian luau...oh interesting tidbit…the Maori supposedly descend from the Polynesians, who travelled over to NZ by boat, hence the similarities between the cultures!)

Dan, Mike’s uncle, was super nice and really good to us. He took us river rafting that first day, and then to warm up in some very relaxing hot pools in a Polynesian spa, a very gorgeous outdoor setting right on the edge of the lake. The river rafting was really fun. We went over several waterfalls – one 2 metres, two 3 metres and the big one – 7 metres! I almost fell out. Beforehand they gave us talks about what to do if you fell out…such as just curl up in a ball if you are submerged, as you may not know which way is up and so you may swim in the wrong direction! That sort of freaked me out, so I was VERY happy that our precariously leaning boat didn’t end up tipping over! What an adrenaline rush though.


Oh, and Mike and I tried ZORBing!!! It was invented in Rotorua. It is basically rolling down a hill in a giant, clear human bubble. It was a RIOT. You had to superman dive through this small opening into this bubble, and then they filled it with some water and covered the hole, and then you essentially tossed and tumbled head over heels down this marble course that wound down the hillside. It was short lived but soooo much fun, and you really picked up speed! I couldn’t stop laughing the whole way down.



The Hangi Mike and I went to was really cool too. Gay’s friend Auntie Bea invited us to come to the one she performed at, at a hotel. She was just the nicest, warmest person I’ve ever met, and really was an amazing performer and singer. The hangi food was pretty decent…traditionally the Maori cook food in the thermal pools, so there were a lot of steamed meats. There was a delicious pudding desert too, with custard and ice cream. After the meal Bea and her crew put on an amazing show with lots of singing (they were all amazing singers!), dancing, etc. The girls did a dance with “poi”, which are two balls joined by a string that you swing around, and the guys did a war dance where they made very scary faces, sticking their tongues out far and bulging their eyes. At one point they invited the audience up so I got to try poi and Mike learned the war dance, along with several other HILARIOUS Koreans who made up the majority of the rest of the audience. It was really funny watching them all try to make scary war faces. Mike was invited up to pose as an honorary chief during the show too. That was hilarious. It was a very cool experience for us.


We did lots in Rotorua…also went for a walk in the Redwood forest there…which they imported from California! So weird. They import a lot of their forests from North America because they grow well and are used for the forestry industry. The Redwoods were not nearly the size of the Redwoods in the forest in California, however, but the walk was still nice and we got a nice view of a thermal area with steaming pools and boiling mud. We also went to the Rotorua Museum of Art and History, which was very interesting. We learned all about the huge volcanic eruption in 1886 that destroyed the once 8th wonder of the world Pink and White Terraces near Rotorua, which had once brought visitors from all over the world. The museum was in a very cool old once bath house building, where they used thermal pools as an alternative medicine…and gave treatments including shock therapy (shocking people while they were sitting in a bath full of warm water!) to treat arthritis and bad nerves, etc… it was very interesting! We also visited a Maori church that had very cool carvings all over it.


Oh, and on the last day I borrowed Gay’s kayak and went for a quick kayak out on the lake. It is a very important bird habitat (although not such a good people lake – very shallow and gross on the bottom!) so there were lots of cool birds to see, including black swans!

New Zealand - Auckland, Hahei beach, and Waitomo Caves

Auckland

First night in Auckland, we went to the hostel bar and partook in a silly game - who could fit the most elastic bands around their head! Mike won of course, and he won...a free bungy jump off the Auckland harbour bridge!!! So the next day we went bungy jumping! It was only 40 m but very fun. We weren't scared or nervous at all! We discovered that day that our last minute planning did not work well with public holidays (i.e. Easter)... We were hoping to rent a camper for the next 5 days until we were going to meet Mike's uncle Dan in Rotorua, but we were unable to get one. We had a hard time finding a rental car as well, but we finally found one that was quite cheap and could be taken one way (even if it meant we had to bus back to the airport to pick it up!) After coming up with a plan for the next few days, we wandered around the city a bit and then went to see Avatar at the IMAX. There wasn't much open on Good Friday!

Saturday, April 3

Went to pick up the rental car after a little fiasco (not being able to find the company, different phone book, not writing down phone number...) but eventually we were on our way. We drove to Hahei beach and after a couple tries found a hostel to stay in within a campground. We went to Cathedral Cove, and hiked into a beach with cool limestone formations (including a big limestone arch).

We shortly discovered, however, that everyone in NZ was spending their easter long weekend up there too, and all tourist attractions were very busy. We tried going to Hot Water Beach, where you can dig a hole at low tide and sit in a natural thermal pool, but when we arrived we realized the only thermal region was surrounded by a hord of about 50 people! It was really crowded and the holes people had dug were just deep enough to stand in, but the water was warm...we left shortly after haha. We met a cool NZ guy that night at the hostel who told us the Tongariro Alpine Crossing day hike was really great, so we decided to do that after visiting the Waitomo Caves.

Sunday, April 4

We drove through Matamata hoping to go on a Hobbiton Tour, but we didn't end up having enough time to do it. However, we drove past the place where Hobbiton was filmed for Lord of the Rings and it definitely looked like the Shire! In fact, a lot of the scenery we've seen so far has looked like it - beautiful hills with pastures full of sheep and cows and scattered forests. I call it all the Shire.

We went on a 4 hour caving expedition called "The Lost World" in the Waitomo Caves region. We soon found out why it was called that. Hidden in a farmer's sheep pasture, amid a forest was a giant gaping hole into a cave, 100 m deep! It was absolutely the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen, and had vines and other vegetation growing down the sides of it. We got to do a 100 m abseil down into the cave (a little uncomfortable on the crotch and legs...Mike's leg went very numb and took a little while to recover haha), then we climbed up various rocks and ledges into the dark tunnel and saw some glow worms. They are basically maggots that are the length of a match stick that emit a glow from their stomach. They don't have bowels or anything, so they burn their waste in their stomach, emitting a light! It looked like a starry sky. Apparently they spend most their life in the larval stage where they catch flies and bugs with the long sticky strings they hang from the roof of the cave. Then later they become a fly for 3 days that is incapable of eating (no mouth), so they reproduce and then are eaten by other glow worms. Crazy life.

Waitomo comes from the Maori (aboriginal) words "tomo" which means hole, and "wai" which means water. A lot of the names here are Maori and hard to pronounce. "Maori" is pronounced "mow-ree" (mow like cow).






Oh, and near the end of the caving we had to climb up a 30 m long ladder. That was reallllly sketchy, especially because it was so slippery and you couldn't see into the darkness you were climbing into. When we reached daylight again, we were in another cave hole surrounded by cool limestone formations covered in vines. It looked like some temply out of Indiana Jones. Sooooo cool.

We found out that people in NZ hate possums because they are the reason kiwi birds are going extinct and now can only really survive in reserves - they eat the eggs. Our caving guide told us if we see one at night on the road we have to run over it. We have seen TONS of dead possum road kill (about 50 so far), but no live possums yet.