North Island Adventure PART 3!

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Hello Everyone!
In late breaking Emily news I have put in my application to work at Park Road Post. So now I must play the waiting game. And now it is time to get back to the magical adventures of Beth and Emily on our North Island trek! Now where did I leave off? Ah yes! The zorb! After we downed yummy crepes at the cafe we drove off to meet our destiny at the zorb. For those of you who don't know what a zorb is, imagine a hamster ball. Now multiple that to human size, make it out of a soft type of plastic, add a small cavity inside the ball ( where people sit in it) and Voila!! You have a zorb. The zorb was invented in New Zealand but I have heard that there is actually one in the rocky mountains in the states as well. In the Hydro-Zorb ( the one that Beth and I went on) the slightly fill the inner cavity of the ball with hot water. You take a running leap and dive like superman through the tube into the inner cavity. Then you are inside the ball, and because of gravity you don't go falling head over heels as the ball rolls down the hill, you are just splashed around on the inside. You do slide around but you never go upside down. I have included lots of pictures for those of you, like me, who do much better with a visual aid.
So the zorb! Pegasus, Beth and I pulled into the parking lot at around 10:30am ready to zorb. We planned to ride down together in the same zorb. We ducked into the freezing cold changing rooms to get into our zorb gear ( t-shirt and gym shorts) Then stood freezing waiting for the van to come down and take us up to the Zorb lift off point. This took longer then expected so we watched the other zorbs going down the hill, dancing from one foot to the next trying to coax some warmth into our summer clothes wearing bodies. ( This did not happen because it is winter here at the moment) Finally the van arrived and beth and I, about 6 kids and 1 man ( I assume he was european due to the fact that he did not opt for the usual zorb attire, decided to flaunt the convention and wore tiny swim trunks that looked as if they had been poured on) I had the happy fortune of sitting next to speedo man. Just when I thought we were going up the hill the van doors burst open and a woman toting a huge camera was suddenly snapping photos all over the place, I was taken by surprize and being photographed from the side, trying to keep as far apart from speedo man as possible, while being told to give a thumbs up resulted in possibly the worst photo ever taken of me. Beth faired no better and we decided that no eyes shall ever see "the van photo" so you are out of luck because there is no way I am posting that picture. In the photo there are these bright shiny kids faces, the sly grin of a man with bad teeth wearing a speedo and then beth and I looking curiously like the cave troll from the lord of the rings being taken by surprise.
The ride finally began and we went up the extremely bumpy track to the top of the hill, Beth was sitting by the doors and I told her to tuck and roll if the door flew open and she went X-treme zorbing down the muddy rocky hill. Beth and I were the first to go down the Zorb. The huge ball was stationary ready for us to jump in. This was easier said than done. Beth went first we were told to put our arms out like superman take a running leap and simply slide into the zorb. Beth and I both got stuck on our graceful entry into the zorb, I felt like Pooh Bear getting stuck in the hole while attempting to get honey. I am just glad that lady was not around to snap photos of me writhing around trying to free myself legs flailing wildy. After a few seconds I was free and landed face first in the warm water. The guy running the zorb told us he would zip up the hole that we had just gracefully entered, then we were to stand up and start walking, by doing this we would push the zorb off it's stand and down the steep hill. If you have ever tried to stand on a wet slip and slide going downhill you know it is hard to stand on wet plastic on an incline. Nevertheless it wasn't too hard to start walking when it was time and in a split second the zorb was rolling! The ball starts going really fast really quickly and beth and I both landed in the water and the ride began. We slid quickly in the water laughing the laugh of someone who has no control over anything that is happening but is also having a good time. You can't see out of the zorb while you are in it, there is alot of steam from the water, so you have no idea where on the hill you are. You just know that you are moving, fast. It was so fun! I loved it. We were sliding all around and into each other until we reached the end. It was like a huge slip in slide except in ball form. As we settled at the bottom of the hill we both knew what was coming, the photographer. So we did our best to look photogenic as we tried to at least sit up. Many photos were snapped, some awesome, some never to be spoken of again. Then it was time to get out and helpfully the man helping us placed the zorb hole, not on the grass, nor the wooden walkway, but right over the sloshiest thickest mud. There is a photo of me squishing in the mud and the saying is true, a picture is worth a thousand words. So we hoofed it to get changed before we froze to death because now in addition to being cold outside anyway, we were wet. So we dried off and drove back into Rotorua, we had planned to go to Tamaki Maori Village ( Maoris are the indigenious people of NZ)where we could experience a Hangi ( traditional maori meal cooked in the ground) a traditional dance and a tour for 30$. Well when we got there we found our tourbook had once again been wrong ( even though it was a 2005 edition it kept getting lots of stuff wrong) the price was actually 50$. Our budget was not able to accomodate this so we decided to head straight onto Waitomo, where the glow worm caves are.
So began our trek to Waitomo, we were a bit dissappointed about not getting to go to the Maori thing ( they make the best bread!) we were glad to have a relaxed schedule. We drove on the wings of our pegasus taking in the scenery and listening to music and talking until we went through a town ( it took about 30 secs to go thru the whole thing) and there in the center was an enormous building shaped just like a sheep, it was made out of corragated iron, and one next to it was a building sized corragated iron dog. We decided we must stop so back we went and stopped on street in Tirau, the corrogated iron capital of New Zealand. The huge dog building was an information center, we got a brochure about the town and I bought a postcard. Then we ventured into the sheep shaped building, it boasted on the brochure as being the only sheep with wool on the inside. Inside the sheep building was a store that sold souveniers and wool products. The best part about the store, besides it being an enormous sheep, was that on one of the display tables a cat had curled into a ball and was asleep. It lived in the store and apparently this was it's favorite spot to curl up and sleep. I wouldn't have even noticed it except a little girl was petting it and calling for her mom to come and look at it. We left the store, went to a really cool cafe we had noticed called Alley Cats Cafe, and yes it had a corragated iron sign, everything did in Tirau.I looked hopefully around for a real cat there too but there was none to be seen. After that we went to an ice cream store to get an ice cream and as we sat in pegasus eating our ice cream Beth exclaimed that there was something black in hers! She had gotten Passionately Cheesecake flavor. She decided to ignore the little black thing which I could really tell what it was, but she said she wasn't really liking the flavor anyway. So by the time she found the 2nd and 3rd little black things in her icecream I went in for a proper examination and then started laughing to beth's dismay. In the flavor Passionately Cheesecake it has a mix of passionfruit and cheesecake flavor and in NZ passionfruit has little black seeds in it. I discovered this unnerving fact when eating passionfruit yogurt. I hate eating seeds so I never get anything with passionfruit in it but beth had no idea about the seeds. I think we were both glad ( beth probably more) that the black things weren't bugs or dirt but nevertheless beth was done with this ice cream cone. As there was nary a trashcan in sight we decided that a "drop" should be made. So as I pulled the car out to the main road beth threw the offending ice cream cone into the near by woods. Hopefully a scavening opossum with the taste for passionfruit seeds with find it as a nice treat.
On we drove to Waitomo, it was getting dark and we made it to the glow worm cave area at 4:55pm. The caves and info center closes at 5pm but lucky for us they decided to close 5 mins before their normal time. It didn't matter because we were able to check out the information they had posted up outside the door. It told us about the times the tours were and low and behold there was a sign for the Angora Rabbit Shearing Shed. They had a free show daily showing how they sheared angora rabbit fur. This clearly was something that I must see it, and beth was excited as well though as she put it, " I am excited to see the rabbits but I am actually more excited to see your reaction to the bunnies more." So it went down on our Must Do list. We hopped back into pegasus and drove to Hamilton to meet my friend Vicki. Her and her dad graciously let us stay at their house in Hamilton for the night and then vicki was getting a ride back with us the next day to Wellington. We planned to go to the glow worm caves the next morning and then head out to Wellington. We met up with Vicki and her dad and then fired pegasus into gear and attempted to keep up as we drove to Vicki's house. Her dad had made us dinner which was really nice and then we attempted to go see a movie but we got there and the tickets were sold out so we settled for grabbing some movie popcorn instead and then went back to her house. We busted out the movie The Notebook and ate popcorn and mudcake and cried ( the notebook is an excellent movie but sad as well at parts) Then we all went to bed and I dreamed of the Angora Bunny Shearing shed.
Part 4 tomorrow! ( the incident in the glowworm cave, and the angora shearing shed!)

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Photos

Zorb 1
Us in the zorb as we start off down the hill

Zorb
Us in the Zorb going down the hill

Zorb 2
Our helpful guy at the bottom of the hill as we are about to exit the zorb

Zorb 3
The photographer making us give a thumbs up in the zorb

Zorb 4
A position we chose ourselves

Zorb 5
Zorb-tastic!

Zorb 6
Beth emerges from the Zorb

Zorb 7
The picture worth a thousand words, me in the mud after exiting the zorb

Zorb 8
Another thumbs up

zorb 9
We are cold!!!!

Beth with Sheep building
The fabulous sheep building in Tirau

Cat in Sheep Building
The sleeping cat on the display in the Sheep Building at Tirau ( the corrogated iron capital of NZ)

Comments

[linda downey]

fun times galore!
Enjoying your travels - great to read of your thoughts and feelings on places familiar and new. Loved the cat photo - Tai is still the number one entertainment around here. Fingers n toes crossed for a successful outcome with your job application. Love, Linda