Tuesday
Looking back on my week spent exploring the North Island of New Zealand with Dan, I can honestly say that it was one of the most thrilling, yet exhausting weeks of my life. We left Tuesday morning, a little later than anticipated after our Aerolineas Argentinas flight was delayed three hours and arrived in Auckland, NZ, at a time unbeknownst to both myself and Dan (with all the flight announcements in Spanish and our new philosophy of “not planning ahead” we were unsure of the time difference between New Zealand and Australia). The enter flight was spent playing poker (my new favorite card game) and we lost track of time before the flight was over.
We picked up our APEX rent-a-car (a silver station wagon) and drove into the city of Auckland. Auckland was a lot smaller than I had imagined and the streets were pretty empty even for a Tuesday night. We explored a bit and judging by the lack of people around concluded that it must be late. We drove around to find an abandoned parking lot and although neither of us was tired, we forced ourselves to go to sleep. I should have mentioned earlier that I was trying to save as much money as possible on this trip so the car also served as a bed for the night.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning we awoke pre-sunrise, somewhat confused. We still had no idea what time it was since our GPS, cell phones, and Dan’s laptop all said different times. We eventually figured it out to be 3am and went back to sleep for a bit. Around 9am we left to drive south to Rotorua and spent the day viewing the “hot bubbling springs,” or in other words, piles of boiling mud that smelled like a mix of rotten eggs and horse manure. From Rotorua we made our way to Taupo for dinner. Taupo is a popular tourist destination for the lake and surrounding city. After dinner we continued to Hawkes Bay where we decided to find a place to stay for the night. The GPS directed us to a small little motel that luckily happened to have one room available for a ridiculously cheap price.
Thursday
We slept in Thursday (which in my terminology means we slept until 9:30am) and spent the day in the bayside town of Napier. Napier is a cute little town with tons of shops and cafes and beaches with black pebbles in place of sand. We left Napier around 2pm because we had to be in Wellington by 5:30pm. We had made one plan for our trip which was to couchsurf in Wellington and we had told our host we would be there at that time. CouchSurfing.com is a website for travelers who open their couches up for other like-minded travelers to stay. During my time in Sydney I had participated in some couchsurfing events and met some amazing people, so I thought New Zealand would be a good time to give it a try. Dan had couchsurfed before and all his experiences had gone well. Wellington is located at the southern-most point of the North Island and was about a 3 hour drive away.
About a half-hour into our drive we drove past what appeared to be hitchhikers on the side of the road (their outstretched hands with their thumbs out might have given it away). I was going too fast to stop short in the middle of the highway, but after passing them a sudden excitement came over me.
“What if we go back and pick them up?” I suggested. Without giving Dan much time to think, I made a U-turn and was on my way. A few seconds later Dan agreed that it would be a good idea.
The hitchhikers were in their early 20s from London and needed a lift south to exactly where we were going. Ollie and Christian (as we later learned they were called) told us about their travels around the world and plugged their iPod into our radio to share some music with us. The chatting continued the entire way as they told us about prior hitchhiking experiences and how the lady before us just dropped them off in the middle of the highway. We exchanged email addresses and dropped them off at their destination a few minutes prior to our own. Afterwards Dan thanked me for coming up with the idea to pick them up. I thanked him for agreeing to it without much hesitation.
We arrived to our couch surfing host’s house a little late after some unsuccessful turns down walkways and one-way streets but Llew, our host, didn’t seem to mind. He was outside brewing beer when we arrived and showed us the pullout couch we would be staying on. Llew was a very friendly guy originally from Canada, but now a permanent resident of New Zealand. We ended up spending two nights at Llew’s place. I tried a few home brewed beers and learned how to play some nerdy board games that I never knew existed. Dan already knew to play some from his time spent at M.I.T. but I guess that’s not what I learned during my weekends at Wagner. I did discover that board games designed specifically for adults are great though and I may secretly buy a few for the future. Wellington was bigger than I expected and the museum was great and rose gardens were beautiful.
Saturday
I had my heart set on bungee jumping during our week in New Zealand, but Dan had slightly different plans. My view on bungee jumping was simple. To me, bungee jumping was quite possibly the scariest thing I could ever do. The idea of standing atop a bridge looking down with nothing except a cord between myself and the ground scared me more than anything else.
And that is the exact reason I had to do it.
Dan viewed it from the opposite perspective of questioning why he would do something that he had no desire to do. He decided that he would look up the statistics and other information before he made his decision. I told him that I didn’t want to hear any of the facts he read until it was over.
The first part of the drive was surprisingly relaxing. The beautiful scenery along the drive took my mind off what exactly I was driving towards. It was not until we saw the first sign that my heart started beating a little stronger than usual. Mokai Gravity Canyon, the highest bridge jump in New Zealand, 15 minutes. Figures I would choose the highest bridge jump in the entire country. I had put much thought into picking out the perfect jump location. I wanted to jump off a bridge with water below to somehow make myself believe that if my cord broke I would still have a chance at surviving, knowing full well that hitting water would be just as deadly as land. I chose the highest jump because if I was going to do it, I might as well do the highest I can find.
As we drove closer and closer, Dan continued to read on his laptop. Occasionally he would exclaim something or chuckle to himself, making me curious about what he was reading, but I decided it was better I didn’t know. I was going to jump no matter what. I was relieved when he told me that he was going to jump too. The statistics must not have been all too bad. The signs continued to count down in minute increments each one making me more nervous than the last. Arriving at the site, signing waivers, being weighed and placed in my harness seems like a blur to me. Before I knew it we were out on the bridge getting ready to jump. We had previously decided that I would jump first since I wanted to get it over with and Dan didn’t really care either way.
I stood quietly as three women attached a bungee cord to me, going through a series of routine checks in preparation for the jump.
“OK so you’re going to make your way out to the edge so that your feet are in the marked place and place your arms out to the side. Then I will yell 3, 2, 1, Bungee and you jump.”
Sounded simple.
“OK go ahead” she instructed.
“Holy shit, this is really happening,” was all I could think as I approached the edge. I could feel the tension of the cord pulling me forward closer and closer to the edge. Without a moment’s hesitation I hear…
“3, 2, 1, Bungee!”
And I jump.
I have no recollection of my brain signaling to my body to jump. The second seems almost surreal. Before I knew it I was plummeting to the water below me, and less than two seconds later I was defying gravity bouncing back up towards the bridge. I bounced several times as all the blood slowly made its way to my head. My head felt like it was encompassing half my body weight before I was lowered down to a raft below me. I sat down on the raft and watched Dan jump from the river below (or rather the rocks covered by about two inches of water).
After our jumps we were placed on a seat and pulled back up to the bridge.
We had bungee jumped and lived to tell about it.
The adrenaline rush that we felt as we jumped was almost impossible to describe, but we attempted to talk about it as we sat waiting to watch our videos. After sitting and waiting for what seemed like a little longer than we were supposed to, a bungee instructor came over to us with some news.
“Diane, for some reason we don’t have your video. Do you want to jump again?”
“Seriously?” I questioned as thoughts clouded my mind. Here I was given the chance to bungee jump again for free, but did I want to do it? It was an experience that I would typically group into the “once in a lifetime” category on my life list. It was an amazing experience, but would I actually describe it as “fun”?
“Sure, I’ll do it,” I replied after what seemed like hours but in reality was just a few seconds.
“Can we go tandem?” Dan asked without a moment’s hesitation.
A few minutes later we were once again being harnessed up and walking on the bridge.
“Is jumping tandem significantly more dangerous?” Dan couldn’t help but ask.
“Yes,” she replied followed by silence…
“Anytime you deviate from the standard procedure it adds risk," she added to justify her response and break the silence.
“Let’s go,” I said not wanting to hear any more.
We were attached to each other and to the bungy cord. I was positioned behind Dan and told to tuck my head onto his shoulder and hug his waist when we jumped. If for some reason, we jumped at different times, we might be injured on the way down.
We slowly inched forward to the edge of the platform, the cord pulling us forward with a force, even stronger than the first time. I gripped Dan as tight as possible, since it felt as if the majority of the bungy cord was attached to him.
“3, 2, 1, Bungy!” and we were off.
Holy Shit. We were falling fast. And far. The added weight made us fall what seemed like at least 10 meters past the first time. And the first bounce up made us rebound almost all the way back up to the bridge. I didn’t know whether to fear crashing back up into the bridge more than falling into the water below. After a few minutes of bouncing, we were safely let down to the raft.
After doing something as daring as bungy jumping, one of the first questions people might ask is “Would you do it again?” That question might be difficult to ask for some, but for us the answer is easy.
We did.
Would I do it a third time?
Probably not.
Sunday
After bungy jumping we made our way north to a hostel near the Tongariro Crossing where we would be hiking the next day. The Tongariro Crossing is said to be the most beautiful hike in New Zealand and is the sight of the filming of Lord of the Rings (a movie I have yet to see). We arrived at our hostel in the middle of nowhere around 8pm to come to the realization that there was no place nearby to pick up food for the hike. Luckily we had some peanuts, chocolate covered raisons, and pretzels that would hopefully give us some energy on the seven hour hike.
We were greeted at the hostel by either the friendliest and craziest man I’ve ever met or the most drugged one. He asked us about our plans for the next day and we proceeded to tell him our plans to go hiking.
“It gets really cold up there,” he explained.
“Do you have a heavy rain-resistant coat?”
“No,” I replied.
“Do you have winter gloves?”
"No."
“A hat?”
"No."
He proceeded to pile these items on top of me as I replied. Not before long my arms were full with an extra large orange coat with paintballing stains on it, a fluorescent orange and white winter hat and gloves so big that they could have fit on my head.
“Well do you at least have bedding for tonight?” he almost pleadingly asked.
Luckily, we did. But only because we had originally planned on sleeping in the car. Who would know to bring their own bedding to a place whose main purpose is to provide people with a place to sleep? Apparently this was something we were expected to know. The next morning we left bright and early to get to the trail. It appeared to be a nice day, about 65 degrees with a few clouds in the sky. Little did I know what was to come…
The hike started off great . We were off to an early lead, passing other hikers by as I thought to myself this is going to be a breeze. The first half of the hike was all up hill, 1920m up hill in fact. Thankfully years of playing soccer gave me quad muscles large enough to endure it and Dan had gone on many hikes before so he was used to setting an appropriate pace.
As we approached the Red Crater (the highest point), I realized that we were walking into a cloud. At first I didn’t’ mind. It was slightly damp and cold and it felt as if I were on a different planet (or as I imagine it would feel). But then the wetness started to sink in. The dirt turned into mud and my intense concentration on not falling kept me from going into my backpack to put on another layer of clothing. Here I was in the middle of mist that had developed into rain, and cold winds with just a light fleece jacket, t-shirt, and jeans. My face started to go numb to the point where clear liquids would drip off my face and I was unsure if it were just the rain or my own snot. Dan was a bit more prepared, but the water was still freezing onto his hair and face. He helped me to get my hat and gloves on since I could barely move. I finally made it to the top, only to discover that heading downhill would be quite the task. I only managed to fall once as I slid down the side of the mountain covered in all dirt. The rest of the hike wasn’t too bad, once we made it out of the clouds.
I finished the hike covered in dirt, wearing a fluorescent orange and white hat, while most other hikers looked just as they did when they started. Next time I’ll be more prepared.
Monday
Monday was the only day of the week that it rained and luckily it was the day we chose to spend at the Waitomo Caves. The Waitomo Caves are famous for the abundance of glow-worms that are inside. There are several options of how to view the caves and we chose to go black water rafting. Black water rafting basically consists of boating through the caves on a tube a little bigger than the size of your butt. We were given wet-suits, a helmet with a light, boots, shorts, and a fleece to put on since the water was cold during his time of year. We spent an hour underground navigating through the cave using only the light of our helmets. We shut the lights off to view the glow-worms that we later learned were maggots with glow-in-the-day poop. I guess calling them glow-worms attracts the tourists. Who would want to see maggots and their poop? Black water rafting was pretty awesome; not as adventurous and dangerous as I had anticipated, but the best way to view the caves. In fact the most difficult part of the day was getting my wetsuit on! The provided us with hot showers and some food afterwards, which worked perfectly since we planned on sleeping in the car before our flight at 8am the following day.
Once we arrived we were transported to surf camp where we spent the first two days of our trip. We were exhausted from a mix of jet lag and waking up at 530am to catch the bus, so when we found out that our first surf lesson would be at 7am the following morning we were slightly caught off guard. We were woken up at 6am the next morning to a knock on the door of our hostel hut. Shortly after breakfast we were given wet suits and made our way to the beach which was a short walk away. Aside from a short theory lesson we spent most of the time in the water practicing standing on the board. 
From Surfer's Paradise we departed for another full day bus ride. We arrived at Hervey Bay around dinnertime and were told we would be meeting the following morning at 6am to depart for Fraser Island (good thing I am a morning person!) on our 3 day, 2 night camping safari. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and the eastern most point in Australia. Before departing we met the 20 other people we would be spending the next 3 days with. We were separated into two camper vans, each with 11 people. After electing certain team members to go food shopping we sat through a video about safety on the island. Apparently there were two deaths just a week earlier on the island from a camper van overturning. We would be off-roading in a 4x4 so toppling over is not that uncommon. I paid very close attention on how to avoid dingos, where to swim to avoid sharks, and even learned how to properly bury any personal waste products deep under the sand and 5m from a stream. Unfortunately I couldn't drive because I don't know how to drive stick shift (which is now on my list of things to learn!), but just sitting inside while the van drove through sand, rocks and water was pretty exhilarating.
The days were spent relaxing in the sun, swimming in clear water lakes and playing soccer and frisbee. The nights (which began at 6pm since the days started at sunrise- we could only drive during low tide) consisted of drinking "goon" (boxed wine) on the beach and playing card games. The island was absolutely gorgeous, the weather beautiful and the stars unlike anything I have ever seen. Sleeping without a pillow was a little tough but I managed. 
