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Published: April 25th 2007
We are on our final day of 9 fabulous weeks in New Zealand, before we depart for our penultimate country!
Not knowing what to expect from our 'Rap, Raft, and Rock' trip in Waitomo, we turned up at 3.00pm to start our adventure. The option for exploring the caves we had chosen involved a 27m abseil into the caves, then some time wandering through the caves looking at glow worms, a bit of black water rafting and final a climb back out. This was all accomplished in wet suits and welly boots!! The wellies were not the easiest footwear to climb a wet dark rock face, but we both made it to the top. The glowworms were fantastic, and with our torches off they covered the roof of the cave like twinkling stars. Our guide proceeded to scare us by letting off a fire cracker, the worms reaction was to glow even brighter. We floated along the underground river in black inflatable rings, this was not the most adventurous of rides as the water level was quite low, but we had fun racing amongst ourselves. The next optional activity was having a go at caving, squeezing ourselves through tiny
water filled spaces. There were a couple of big lads in our group, and so it figured that if they could fit through the gaps so could we! Our guide assured us that nobody ever gets stuck, but occassionally people get 'wedged'! I kept thinking of poor Pooh Bear in the rabbit warren! Our guide filled us with confidence, by trying to tell us that he was only slightly off the wagon, ex-convict, enjoying his first day at work! As it goes, the water in the cave was not too cold, and we both thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon.
We drove the same evening to Rotorua, starting to feel the pressure of how much we had left to do and how little time we had remaining. After a night on a campsite by the lake we went to the information centre and got ourselves booked onto Maori cultural evening, and white water river sledging. Rotorua is another thermally active area, and what the photos don't let you know is the smell of sulphur that lingers around the place! We saw some more cool thermal pools at Hell's Gate, including a mud volcano. That evening we attended our Maori evening complete
with Hangi, at the Novotel - don't think that is the authentic place to hold such an event!! Nevertheless, we had a fantastic buffet meal, with the two travellers that have not had that much food available to them in one sitting for a while, very easy to spot! Part of the meal was cooked in a Hangi, but again because of Health and Safety etc, this was not true to the traditional form of cooking in that there was far too much stainless steel evident! The cultural show kicked off with one member of the audience being made the chief for the evening - luckily for us he was on our table, which meant that we got to get our food first! Next came a series of dancing, singing and throwing around of sticks which required a good deal of hand and eye coordination. Inevitably, the time came for a bit of audience participation. I was hauled up on stage with a number of other women to learn how to do the Poi dance. This involves swinging some soft balls around on a string and catching them in time to the music. My lack of coordination did not help,
and the 5 year old girl in front of me did a lot better job.
Next up it was the boys turn, after they had laughed at the girls. They learnt how to do the Haka, complete with bulging eyes and protruding tongues! Not much coordination was evident during this phase of the evening either!
The next morning involved a relatively early start, so that we could see the Lady Knox Geyser, who promptly goes off at 10.15 each day with a little assistance from a soap like substance that is added. After the geyser we wandered around another thermal park, concluding that we had had our fill of thermal areas!
That afternoon we were booked onto the white water river sledging trip. We had expected a nice little float around the river with sledges and going down a couple of tame rapids - we were wrong! As it happened we were the only 2 booked onto the afternoon session, so there was the 2 of us and 2 guides. We were kitted out with wetsuits, helmets etc and then headed off for the river. Another group from a rival company was sat down receiving a safety
briefing, and instructions on how to move the board in the water. Our guide bypassed this section (it now became clear that he was in a hurry - it was Saturday afternoon after all), and we walked down the path to the river. This would have been easy, if we hadn't needed to carry our sledges, balanced precariously on our heads. They weighed at least 7kg, and with steps to go up and down, and at a pace set by a man in need of a Saturday night pint, we struggled. Once at the river we still had to negotiate climbing over a wooden fence, down a rock face. Once at the river, flippers on, I was told to just launch into this fast flowing water, pointing in one direction with the aim that I would end up in a totally different direction, avoiding going down the rapid at this stage. I was not enamoured with this, to say the least! Our guide at this point was now paying more attention to the other group, rather than what we were up to. We were shown how to right the position of the sledge should we end up upside down, but
when I couldn't easily master this technique I was told that it didn't matter - the other guys had been shown this on dry land, not in fast flowing water! With confidence at an all time low, it was time to tackle the rapids. The second guide joined us (having gone down a 7m waterfall on his sledge) and we were off. We went down the rapids, with the knowledge that whatever we did, we must not let go of the sledge. Holding on for dear life, we both made it through the course, and were grateful to be told that we had reached the point where we were to get out. After doing all of our walking we thought we were relatively fit, but because of all the kicking we had to do, our legs kept going into cramp for the next day or two. Two weeks later we can now see the funny side of it (just), but I maintain that I am never doing it again!
We moved on from our brush with death, to spend the night with some old family friends. We had a nice evening and breakfast before heading up to the Coromandel.
Our first destination was hot water beach, which is a beach that has a thermal spring underneath a section of the beach that is accessible 2hrs before and after low tide. Unfortunately as we arrived the tide had turned, covering the area with cold sea water. We decided to go and see Cathedral Cove instead, and we had a pleasant walk around the coast line to this beautiful area. The sea was clear blue.
The next morning we went back to hot water beach, hired our heavy duty spade, and headed towards the crowds! The first place we started to dig, the water was far too hot to stand in, let alone sit in. The next spot was stone cold. A couple observed our lack of technique and informed us that we need to dig a hole and channel some hot water and some cold in to obtain a comfortable temperature. This is easier said than done, but we made ourselves a little pit to lie in which filled with comfortable bath temperature water. This other couple had an active 9yr old with them, who was more than happy to keep directing hot or cold water as required
in our direction, so we got to just lie back and relax. It was a lovely day, and a nice beach aside from the hot water.
Next stop was an evening with Mary, who cooked us a much needed roast dinner, followed by apple crumble. This night, as well as the evening at her son's, were the first nights spent in a proper double bed since Malaysia!
Well rested, we headed north to the Bay of Islands. The weather was good, and we booked ourselves onto a sailing trip for the following day. The day started with little wind, so there was little sailing initially, but we went over to one of the islands and climbed to the top of a hill where there were lovely views. We then went back to the boat to don wetsuits yet again, and did a spot of snorkelling. Despite lovely clear water we saw few fish, but we did see some stingrays - Crikey!
A nice lunch was made for us and then we were set to make our way back to the mainland. The wind had picked up, so we got to sail. It was no America's Cup, but
it was good fun, with everybody helping out on deck.
Our next stop was just south of ninety mile beach - which in fact is nearer 60 miles long. We took a coach trip, as this is one of the roads that our car insurance is invalid for us to drive on. We first visited the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, where they have got a huge tree trunk with a staircase carved out through the middle. We then took the road up to Cape Reigna, saw a lighthouse and another sign that proved that we are getting closer to London! Lunch was next with lovely homemade scones and muffins, and then it was time for some real fun - the reason we were on the trip - To go sand boarding! This set up was a little better than that we had seen in Vietnam and we were equiped with proper sledges rather than sheets of plastic. The sandunes however, were bigger and steeper. We clambered our way to the top. The first down were a Dad and his little boy on separate sledges(who had been warned by the driver to start half way down with little ones). They rocketed
We liked this sign!
The water in these pools about 130Cdown, getting 2/3 of the way before the child was catapaulted out of his sledge. The instant silence at the top was filled with screams from the bottom. Luckily he was ok, so we still got to have a go, albeit slightly more cautiously!! The ride was fast, and we were dragging our hands behind us to slow us down a bit, but this didn't seem to have much of an effect!
The coach continued to drive us back along the beach. We stopped at one point to take some photos, and the driver showed us how to find clams. We cracked them open and ate a few, they were lovely. Having been told that you can take up to 150 per person, per day we knew what we were going to have for dinner!
Once back we set off to the section of the beach closest to us to repeat our clam catching. Where as earlier in the day we were finding clams ten at a time, we were no where near so successful. Rob was adamant that we were going to have clams for dinner so we drove a bit further along the beach and found
enough for dinner, just before the last of the sun disappeared! Rick Stein would have been proud! We steamed them up, with the odds and ends we had - white wine, chicken noodle cup a soup and water! It tasted good!
We were now down to the last couple of days with Sally, so we spent a couple of days splitting the drive up back to Auckland. 2 days ago we had to part with Sally, which was a little sad, especially when we saw her back on the road with 3 lads in her, only an hour after we dropped her off - the little hussey!
Last night we met up with some fellow spaceship owners and chatted until the wee hours. They offered to give us a lift into town which we accepted once we had managed to squeeze everything back into our bags. Our flight to Fiji is early tomorrow morning, so we have a funfilled night at the airport ahead of us!
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