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Published: February 1st 2008
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After a month of traveling in New Zealand, Ashley + I had a great last week in the North Island. After our initial car trouble, Emma, my friend from camp, was able to pick us up, and take us to her house. Her house is on a huge farm right outside Te Puke, and she has every kind of animal imaginable! They have about 170 dairy cows, which is apparently a very small herd for New Zealand, horses, chickens (Fresh Eggs every morning!), dogs, cats, and even a pot-bellied pig! We had the best time ever at Emma's house. The first day we went to her family friends house, who have a house right on this gorgeous lake, it actually reminded me a lot of Walloon. We spent the day just lying in the sun, and reading trashy American magazines that I got in my care package-Thanks Paige + Dan!!!!
The next day we drove to Mt. Manganui, which is a large mount on the coast of the Bay of Plenty, which is the region Emma lives in. We didn't climb the mount, but we did do a nice leisurely walk around the base of it, and the beach stretches
Emma's Farm
Workin the tractor all along the outskirts of it. The last day we went to Kiwi 360, which is a massive tourist site that Emma used to work at, the giant Kiwi out the front is really famous, there were pics of it in all the guidebooks i looked through. After that we drove down to the beach, where Emma's family friend met us with her 3 horses, and we got to ride them in the ocean. It was absolutely amazing, we actually got deep enough that the horses were actually swimming, and you just had to cling onto their manes for dear life. It was just one of the coolest things I've ever done.
Later that day, Ashley and I drove to Rotorua , where we went Zorbing, which is basically the coolest thing ever. Zorbing is a totally ridiculous New Zealand creation, they have these large rubber balls that are basically like hamster balls, and theres a hole in the middle. You crawl into that hole, they put a little water in the ball to make it slippery, and then they push you down a hill. Ashley and I were just dying laughing, when you start you are sitting
up, but by the end there are just legs and arms flying everywhere. A very short ride but TOTALLY worth it. 😊 Then, to top off an amazing day, as we were drying off in the Zorbing office-Michelle Rodriguez (Ana Lucia) from LOST walks in!! I seriously squealed at the top of my lungs and dragged Ashley off into the corridor hissing "ITS ANA LUCIA!" and creepily proceeded to stare at her through different windows of the office. Sadly I wimped out on getting a pic with her, but I did get one of her back!
The next day we left Emma's house early to drive to Hamilton, our last stop on our New Zealand adventure. Emma's family was so lovely, and cooked amazing food the whole time we were there, we got very spoiled! 😊
In Hamilton, we were planning on staying with Pul and Robin, 2 more camp buddies, but the night before, I got a text from my OTHER 2 friends, Tim + Josh, saying they would also be in Hamilton the next day. Ashley and I got into Hamilton, shipped some massive boxes home, and headed to the pub. Before I knew it, it
was Me, Ash, Tim, Josh, Pul + Robin at the pub-It's worse than Ann Arbor over here! Josh is from New Zealand, and Tim is over for a few months to do a teach-exchange program, but he had just gotten here a few days before, so our timing really worked out.
The next day Tim, Ashley + I drove to Waitomo to go see the famous glow worm caves. This is a whole region of massive underground caves, and there are numerous tours you can do, from sitting in a boat and being pulled along, to hardcore spelunking and action activities. Ashley still wasn't feeling well, so she opted to go for the slower boat cruise, while Tim + I signed up for a 5 hour tour with Rap, Raft + Rock, that offered abseiling, blackwater rafting, and rock climbing.
Everyone had to get into these super thick wet suits, and put these silly pants on over them-with the headlamps on we all looked like we were strait out of the Men at Work 80s music video. We started off by abseiling, or rapelling down a 27 meter drop into the caves. Afterwards we splashed around and began exploring the
Kiwi 360
The giant Kiwi @ Emma's old job caves, which was as shallow as my ankles in some areas and as deep as my armpits in other areas. Once we got deeper into the caves, everyone turned off their headlamps and everything went pitch black except for the millions of tiny glow-worms, which made the whole place look like the inside of a planetarium. It was so cool. We also did some "Blackwater rafting", which was more like "Blackwater floating" in an innertube, but still fun. Our guide would have us crawl through tiny little crawl spaces in the caves, I was the shortest person there and I still got stuck in a few of them! It ended up being a super fun day, and the glow worms were just incredible to see.
That night we drove to Josh's house, where we left really early the next morning for Auckland. Due to traffic and not the best time management, we ended up only having about 2 hours in Auckland after we dropped off our rental before we had to head to the airport. Just enough time to go to Starbucks (100% Ashley's idea, sorry mom!) and explore the bus terminal. We had such a great month in
New Zealand but are so excited to get to Thailand. Right now it's a little bit of a mixture of anxiety and excitement, but I'm hoping thats normal. Hoping everyone in the states is doing well...and my next entry will be from Thailand...Woo hoo!!!!
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Anya
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Omg Moo Moo is the cutest. Also, zorbing needs to come to U.S. I just spent the past 5 mins looking at videos on youtube and it looks like the most ridiculous amount of fun. Speaking of Ana Lucia, I just saw season 4 premier of Lost and it was good. Not shocking, but good!