Skydiving- a remedy to tummy pains, abseiling waterfalls underground, Chief Jack and his great North Island voyage.

From Wellington, the vibrant capital of culture and wind I headed on up to a quaint little place called Turangi, where I met Liv, a mate from the Oz travel days, and where we proceeded to wait for 3 days in vain for the weather to clear/ move out of the guaranteed suicide category, on The Tongariro Crossing. It is meant to be "The best day walk on the planet" but as experienced guides were even refusing to go due to the blizzards and avalanches, it was probably best we didn't chance it. Instead we entertained ourselves with Jenga, a highly competitive game of Pictionary with some Germans, lecturing the new (as of 3 days) hostel owners on "how to run a backpackers" (honestly our advice is like gold dust) and highlighting my hair Nordic Blonde. Yes, or so it said on the box. Surprisingly, despite my fears of resembling the ultimate reincarnation of 90's boyband hairdo's, Liv seemed to posess a hidden talent of blending natural shades with artificial tinting to produce a finish that looked subtlely lighter and nordicaly understated. Basically the blonde matched my sun-bleached eyebrows, so its all good. And there is no hint of ginge. Which would be horrific. Truly horrific.

With new cut-and -dye job (haha, no its hardly noticeable, honest) I sauntered on upto Taupo (having blagged a free lift...you would expect nothing less) and caught my very first Stray bus to Auckland. Stray is a tour bus company that prides itself in taking people 'off the beaten track' around New Zealand, but something which I shamelessly say I felt slightly superior to in the median of 'seeing the real New Zealand' as you cannot really experience as much when you are being carted from place to place as opposed to catching rides with authentic Kiwis. To be honest that is mainly bollocks, and is just a way of people, like myself, who are on too tight a budget to splash out on tours, to justify why they spend hours on the side of the road, on their own, rather than sitting in a comfortable, warm bus telling luxurious travel stories and pitying another wretched hitchhiker who they encourage the driver (often called hoover or cougar or another name suggesting a sexual innuendo) to splash as they cruise by them. Anyway, as I think I mentioned, I was temporarily free of the ever heavier ball and ever shorter chain that is my travel budget as I had indeed WON a free 5 day Stray Bus Pass around the North Island. After a brief night in Auckland I was off on the tour, on the other side of the orange door, behind the steamed up glass panes, sharing the laughter, sipping the champagne, nibbling on the caviare and warming my hands over a fire in the bus aisle fuelled by a hitchhiker we caught, tarred and feathered and subsequently torched. Mmmmm the smell of burning polyester from his salvation army clothing, with a hint of peanut butter, the species' soul nourishment, and just a whiff of socks, unlikely to have been changed for the last few days. I smile to myself as I contemplate my evolution, "The Ascent of Jack" Darwin's lesser known works, in which the creature famed for shoeless international travel and a sub-human ability to track down free sleeping space metamorphs into an unrecognisably civilised form.

There were 14 on us on the tour for the days I was there, a couple of dutchies, french, germans, Jen from Canadia, a Brazilian, a German dude, Skins our driver and guide, and then the huge turbo-fuelled injection of banter and entertainment (or so we thought) coming from Nick (from London) and I, the British contingent. With a shared love of David Brent impersonation, attention-seeking and pseudo-mocking of other nationalities we had a wicked amount of fun on a potentially quiet ride. Some games were introduced to the group, one which I was particularly poor at was called "Mine" where you cannot say the word "mine" I however seemed to say "mine" rather a lot. And every time I said "mine" you had to do 5 press-ups, no matter where you are. On the bus, in a supermarket, 80 metres underground in a cave.... yup, you get the idea.

The first night we had a huge BBQ which Nick and I in particular absolutely gorged ourselves on. Then at about 10pm, we all had the rather surreal experience of going to the beach, in the freezing cold, in the middle of the night, with several large spades. Rather than hiding the evidence of a dead Dutchie who just got tooo damn sarcastic, we were actually there as it was a hot water beach, with the idea being that if you slave away at digging a hole in the right place an hour either side of high tide, then abrakadabara, you have your very own hot pool. It is a precise science, where you want just enough cold sea water in to prevent any horrific scolding and comical yelping as people dig too deep into a warm bit, but not too much which defeats the point of digging a "hot pool". Sweat, blood and tears laterand we finally dug a hole (the best hole Skins has ever seen, quote, unquote") big enough to fit us all, and the sense of reward afterwards was incredible. Lying back, in a gloriously steaming, warm pool, gazing up at the Southern Cross and Milky Way, waves lapping gently nearby, Tui beer in hand, talking rubbish with new, interesting people. Things don't get much better!

Bussing across from East to West coast and we got to an adventure retreat, must be the-place-to-be in summer, a little quite in winter with Raglan's rare left-hand (or right-hand... one of them) break not really inviting me to surf this time with the oh-so-cold water. I did do a spectacular display on the assault course and flying fox they had. I can never be too old to recreate being 10 again at the play park in Ayr, and had the privilege of having the park assault course all to myself in the days when Papa used to get us down there before it was light, to get full use on everything hours before the next child stepped foot in it! Introduced The Office to others on our tour... the magic of David Brent does not seem to travel too well, particularly across the English Channel. Oh well, worth a try.

The next day got me doing one of the awesomest things ever, and made up for the efforts of saving money elsewhere to splash out on abseiling waterfalls nearly 100 metres underground. Amazing. Glow worms. Rock climbing. Squeezing through tiny half-submerged passages. Huge drops. Water, water everywhere. Really exhilirating at Waitomo Caves. Amazing to find such a huge netweork of tunnels under such normal looking green fields with sheep grazing, completely nonchalant of the hundreds of thousands of stalagmites and stalagtites built up over hundreds and thousands of years spread out in a huge web of tunnels beneath them. Stupid sheep. Baaaa.

We spent the night at one of Stray's "unique, special stops" which was a Maori's Meeting House, kind of a community hall decorated with some Maori bling, but we felt privileged none the less. I was super-set on being made chief, which may have coerced people a little into electing me as chief of the stray tribe for the night, rather than giving the role to the oldest guy (out of the 3 of us I was actually the youngest... but the most enthusiastic and pleading.) So after getting drunk with my own power and thoroughly abusing it, typically forcing everyone to address me as "Big Chief" and demanding the other tribe members to act as my personal slaves in bringing me beer and Maori-cooked food, I ended up changing tact and became repulsively humble, refusing to fill my own stomach until all of my tribe had eaten their fill. I am not sure what side people appreciated most, I suspect neither. Anywho, after our dinner I was directed to lead the tribe through to greet our enemies we were intent on making peace with. I got to say, although it was all very choreographed, and repeated day-in, day-out for every stray bus that came through, I was VERY intimidated. These two kids probably no more than 15, wearing the traditional dress- topless with a reed-like skirt came towards me, chants reverberating from the depths of their lungs, eyes wide, fierce and focussed entirely on mine for the full 5 minutes as they edged closer, step by step, whilst swinging a huge stick around. I thought I would be finding it hard not to laugh (and I think others in the group felt this way) but with that eye contact I was just trying my best not to flinch. I took their peace offering of a twig and leaves very gratefully- I don't even want to think what they would have done to me if it was 500 years previously and I made the ultimate of insults of stepping over it.

After a cheeky bit of traditional dancing, it was time for me to propose to their chief whether we could learn the Haka. They said it was the first time they had ever taught girls the Haka (something I am dubious about). We got pretty into it and at the end we did a final, tops-off display which is all pretty hardcore and intimidating, particularly when it comes to the huge stare and sticking out of pierced tongue. Bad ass. Although I am not quite sure we are up to the All Black's standard yet. After all the fun and only (genuinely) 3 beers it started to hit me. Bam. Like a burning ball of fire just beneath my costal margin, gastritis reared its ugly head in nearly two years. Ouch. It was a sleepless night, and I apologise if its discomfort is mentioned a little too much in the rest of this post. It unfortunately was the defining feature in my final few days in New Zealand.

When we got to Rotorua, with an eerily quite bus trip by my standards, Skins took me straight to the clinic. I didn't have to wait long before a lovely female doctor originally from Iraq of all places, saw me, loaded me up with some Paracetamol and Gastrisoothe (an anti-cholinergic to assist in smooth muscle relaxation for any medically minded peeps reading this) and let me curl up on the bed for a solid 3 hours. I stirred once or twice, and pretended to be asleep when she put an extra blanket over me. Awww. Although she only really administered pain relief, and I had to request some PPI's (Proton Pump Inhibitors- Omeprazole in my case) the TLC she and the nurses gave is what really made me feel better, and really made a difference. Note to self in future career....

We stopped off at some geothermal mud pools, and later a hot water pool for a quick dip, before making it to Taupo. An incredible waterfall pouring out huge volumes of water from a narrow gorge made me hungry for white water rafting which I was unable to do in Rotorua, that was until I heard most people who had tried these falls had in fact died. Still, perhaps if I am in New Zealand in a coming summer I can get on down in the raft, and derfinitely on a safer stretch of river. A pain-full but alcohol-free quiz night down the local pub in Taupo had me home early, and umming and erring about a skydive as my choice of activity when I was feeling so bad. However, with a clear sky the next morning, and a bus heading tback to Auckland in the afternoon, I knew it was now or not-on-this-trip, and as one of my agency jobs, when saving up back in Edinburgh was designated sky-diving money, I knew I had to go for it. What better way of putting my mind off my chronic stomach pain than hurtling towards the ground from 15,000 feet in the air at 200 kilometres per hour??

It works by the way, something maybe to subscribe to my patient's of the future...

My mind was certainly off the epigastric zone when I started ascending in an uncomfortable little pink plane, with 7 others, including a dude from Hungary rather irritatingly strapped to my back. I guess he was too scared to be on the front, like me. Bless him. I told him not to worry, that everything will be alright, but all the way up he still checked and rechecked our straps, and kept on tightening the buckles attaching us. Bless him, he must have been really nervous. I was pretty annoyed that I had to "nanny" him all the way to the ground, when I was assured he would then get off my back, still at least he wasn't going to try and stay with me up to Auckland, or all the way to South America, that would be terrible. I thought it was pretty good of me really to agree without a fuss to share the precious bit of sky and my only free-falling experience with him. I didn't say a word. It did take the absolute piss that he INSISTED on taking a huge bloody bag strapped to his back as well. If I am okay without one, he will be too. Bless, these Hungarians can be a bit soft sometimes. Something about being scared of the ground hitting him too hard....ridiculous really, I mean, who has ever heard of the ground hitting you, let alone too hard?!!

Ha.

My favourite part of the fall was probably the first part when you leave the plane, the whole butterfly-tasting your testicles-feeling like you get with a bungee jump, but without really any fear as your too damn high for your brain to register it. Considering most people feel there 1 minute fee fall lasts 5 seconds due to all the adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine released and our inability to cope with the visual and tactile perspectives, I actually felt my free fall was a decent amount of time. I definitely want to do it again when I am 100% as I got a freezing headache and found it pretty hard to breathe which felt liek being blasted with a jet of very cold air. When the parachute opened I was a little relieved.... until the discomfort of it cutting into my thighs took over. All in all, yay to the loss of stomach pain, but my whole nerve center was pretty screwed and I think I would have enjoyed it more in other circumstances. What was briliant was my confusion afterwards. For about half an hour I was a little dazed as my poor simple brain was trying to make sense of the situation, it failed really. Then I felt sleepy, as everything started to return to normal.

12:30 and I was onto my last stray bus back to Auckland. From New Zealand to Argentina will be the delightful subject of my next blog entry in the not too distant future. Stay tuned for stories of stomach pain, stomach pain, and ummm, yeah you guessed it. (Now though, a week on things are feeling much better. phew) xx



Maori.. leader etc Rotorua... <Taupo...sky dive... back toAuckland..flight ...

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