Extreme sports and more rain

After leaving Taupo in the pouring down rain we drove through the Tongariro national park but could not see Mt Ruapehu (Mt Doom) because of the cloud. Our first stop was Ohakune, land of the giant carrot. Ohakune is the carrot capital of NZ and has a monument to this in the shape of a giant carrot. Its also a big ski town, where we were hoping to be able to get a taste of skiing.

That night we headed out into town to watch the all blacks game in the local pub. It was a liiiiittttlle scary in there, we made a quick exit after the game finished. The following morning we were up early and drove off up the mountain toward Turoa ski fields on mount ruapehu. On the drive up it was still wet and cloudy but once we had driven up through the cloud there was brilliant sunshine over the mountains. It was absolutly packed as well, possably the most peopel i've seen in NZ yet. It's school holidays at the moment so obviously everyone must go skiing.

We queued up for ages to book onto a beginner lesson, and then queued to get our ski boots, poles and skis. We then passed the time til our lesson watching lots of people skiing and falling over, ...and lots of children crying. In the afternoon we went for our ski lesson which was fantastic! Our instructor first had us just moving around on one ski to get used to things. When we got to wearing two skis , Rich just started sliding down the mountain and couldn't stop until he fell over whilst everyone else was still stood in line. Very funny.

The lesson carried on with us learning how to start, turn and most importantly stop! After an hour or so sal and i were geting the hang of it and started using the travelator to get back to the top of the slope and then ski down on our own, it's was absolutely brilliant and so much fun we both really enjoyed it.

After a brillaint fun day of skiing we headed of early next morning up to Waitamo to see the glow worm caves. A guide took us on a tour through some huge caves, one called cathedral cave where bands such as U2 have played, then we winded down lots of stairs deep under ground to look at some smaller caves and stalagmite and stalagtites. The best bit by far though was when we boarded a boat to travel along the underground river through caves and tunnels. at first it was pitch black and you couldnt see anything, but as your eyes adjust to the dark we saw millions of green lights dotted all over the roof of the tunnel. These were the glow worms and it was a pretty spectacular site!

There are lots caving and black water adventures to be had in Waitamo, sadly our bodies were to battered and bruised from the previous days skiing to be able to take on any of these. Plus the thought of abseiling 100metres down in to a pitch black cave wasn't our idea of fun.

In the afternoon we headed across to Rotorua. As we approached you could smell the sulphur in the air from all the volcanic thermal areas. Nice. The next morning we headed off to Te Puia to see some geysers and volcanic mud pools. It was really interesting as our guide showed us around the area, telling us about maori history and culture too. We got to see some maouris doing traditional wood carving as well as weaving clothing. They also had a kiwi house where you could see the ellusive kiwi. Kiwis only come out at night and are very shy so its hard to see one in the wild. There was also a maori meeting house built there, and at midday we went to watch the show where they do some dances and a haka.

In the afternoon we headed off to Zorb rotorua! Something we have both been really looking forward to doing. Zorbing involves climbing into the middle of a giant inflatable ball, which has warm water in the bottom of it. The ball then gets rolled down a steep slope as you bounce and roll around inside it sloshing in the water as it hurtles down the hill......its awesome! funniest thing ever. sal and i could not stop laughing.

That night we arranged to go Tamaki Village, a traditional Maori village just outside Rotorua where they have a village setting you can walk around and ask the actors questions, they are all dressed in traditional clothes. When you arrive you are divided into 5 tribes, each tribe has a chief and the chiefs have to go through a really really scary welcome ceremony with maori warriors! Glad chiefs can't be women so i escaped. The best part of the evening was the traditional hangi dinner, where everything is cooked in an underground oven using volcanic rocks that are hot and create a pressure cooker environment. The food was amazing! Loads and loads of veg and lamb, chicken, fish, potatoes. Then steamed pudding for desert. Rich surpassed his previous eating record set at uncle rogers of 5 eggs and three pieces of fish by eating about 5% of the new zealand lamb population in one sitting. An impressive sight to behold. I wonder if the other people at our table could tell he'd been living on tuna pasta for 7 months.....

On our final day in rotorua we were up early and off to Ohere falls to do some white water rafting, this was the hight of extreme sports and the thought of rafting over a 7 metre waterfall had led to a sleepless night....we were a little nervous to say the least. This was not helped when we arrived at our rafting base to see lots of photos on the walls of the raft upside down after going over the waterfall, with people swimming for dear life back to the raft. we got changed into our wet suits and fleeces and got a quick demonstration on the different paddling commands our guide would use....and more importantly the brace position for gonig over the waterfalls...and what to do in the event that the raft overturns...aggghhhh

We drove down to the river and it looked pretty rough, there was lots of white water. We jumped in our raft and set off down the river to the first 3 metre waterfall. our guide Scot stopped the raft just before and got us to stand up in the raft and look over the dge of the waterfall,....we all thought he was joking as it looked like certain doom, but no, we sat back down and off we went paddling over the edge before jumping down onto the floor and hanging on...it was awesome the raft goes under the water and theres huge walls of water smashing at you before you pop back up again amazed that you're still alive. the adrenalin was really pumping now as we carried on down the river to the big one, the 7 metre waterfall. again the guide stopped the raft just before the edge hooking it up to a rope and made us look over the edge, it looked a massive drop! he let the rope go and off we went, sal and i were sat right at the front which was scary, we went over the huge drop and the raft completely submerges in the water, we just held on tight and hoped it didn't flip over, luckily it didn't and somehow we emerged further down form the waterfall unscathed....quality!

the rest of the river had a few smalled drops and rapids, and our guide took great pleasure in paddling us back into the rapids so that they flooded over the front of the boat and soaked us. it was great fun!

Extreme activities over, that afternoon we drove up to the coromandel peninsula in search of rest, relaxation and maybe some warmer weather???

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