The Final Chapter!

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Hello Everyone,
Sorry for the delay in writing this last chapter to the fabulous adventures of Beth and Emily around the North Island. It has now officially been one week since I sent in my application to Park Road Post. I of course have not heard back from them yet because they said it would take several weeks to get through all the applications, especially since they are going to acknowledge everyone of them. Which is awesome because there is nothing worse then applying for a job and never hearing anything back. I hate that! I have been a bit nervous about the whole thing because I want this job so badly. I actually dreamt last night that I had an interview and I got the job, but also in that dream I was fighting crime next to Angelina Jolie and my sister maribeth cut half my hair off for some unknown reason. Needless to say the job has been constantly on my mind. Anyway back to the fourth and final chapter in the tale of Beth and Emily.
We left off last time where Beth and I were staying at my friend Vicki's house in Hamilton. We were on the road by 9 the next morning, on our way back to Waitomo to see the glowworm caves and the infamous shearing shed. It took us about an hour to drive to the caves and Beth and I got tickets to the main cave, it included a tour of the cave and a boat ride through 'glowworm grotto' where we could witness first hand the fabulousness of the glowworms. The tickets were 30$ and vicki didn't want to pay that much to see the caves so she waited in Pegasus for us and read while we went in. The caves had a surprisingly long history, and the company has been taking people down to visit the glowworms for more than 100 years. We followed our guide into the cave entrance and began the descent to the lower section. There were lots of stalagmites and stalagtites and the mandatory dripping sounds. It was dark and damp but the cave formations were really interesting to see. We finally made it down the staircases to the bottom level, in front of us was a huge cavernous room. We stopped in the beginning of the room and the guide talked about the enormous stalagtites that were around and how there were funny shapes they had formed in. If you pushed your imagination you could see the elephant she was trying to show us formed in rock or the massive pile of dreadlocks that a rock had decided to look like. The only one I thought that was really accurate was a rock which they called the "bungy jumping kiwi" which basically looked like a kiwi bird hanging upside down. We followed the guide to the main area of the room which was called The Cathedral due to it's enormous size and apparently amazing accoustics. There is no echo in here, the guide said. Then she asked for volunteers to sing a song. Our group was exceptionally lucky in the fact that not one, but two eager singers were busting with song that they just had to share.
The first singer was a woman from Portugal who sang a hymn, and was so moved by her own singing that she began to cry while singing it. After she had finished another woman, who was there with her children and husband, proclaimed that 20 years ago she had sung a song in this very cave and now she was going to do it again. As she began to sing Amazing Grace, and her voice wasn't really bad and she was incredibily passionate about singing this song. It was obviously an important moment for her and she was putting forth all she had into singing this song, which is why I was suprised to notice that her husband wandered away in front of the group to apparently inspect some of the formations more closely. He was wearing a windbreaker track suit and wandered to the end of the cave where the group would shortly be going, stared at some rock for a moment and then began to wander back. I thought this behaviour was a bit odd due to the fact that his wife, standing next to me was so into her song that she was waving her arms in time to the music. It was only until he was back in the group that the smell first hit me. It was a very unpleasant and pungent odor which had been wafting it's way towards the group, but this smell was in no way a biproduct of being in a cave, it's source was quite obvious. I looked over at Beth who had smelled it at the exact same time that I did. This man, had decided that while his wife was pouring Amazing Grace out from her heart and soul, that this was the opportune time to wander off in the cave in the direction of where the group would be going next and fart. And boy, was it a fart. It seems that it would have occured to him that we are in a cave and there is not much air flow, nor space to avoid the smell. Meanwhile after realizing what had happened, I was desperately trying not to look at beth because I knew that I would began laughing really hard and out loud. And the last thing I wanted to do was laugh out loud during this woman's song. At least I had some respect for her singing, unlike her husband whose timing could not have been more ridiculous.
After that little incident, we followed our guide to a lower level cave where we could see some glowworms hanging down from the ceiling. She shone the light on them and we could see their strings hanging down. The glowworm is actually a larva which drops a thread ( kind of like a spider) down from their cocoon. The light they give off is used as bait for anything that is attracted to light, the little creature then gets caught on the sticky thread and is sucked up like a piece of spaghetti. The brighter the glow of the glowworm, the hungrier they are. We saw the hundreds of little threads hanging down waiting for their next meal. It looked a bit creepy but it was really cool to see. Then it was off to the boatride, we had to divide into two groups. Beth and I made a mad dash to be in the group without the windbreaker man. Our boat went first, and the guide stood on the top of the boat and pulled us along using ropes that were on the sides of the cave. We had to be very quiet as to not disturb the glowworms. She pulled us along in silence and I looked down into the black water and beth and I quickly whispered to each other how we were so glad that we decided not to Black water raft. One of the options to go into the glowworm caves is Black Water Rafting, where you don a wetsuit and hop into a tube with a miner's helmet on and glide down an underground river in pitch dark and look at glowworms. While this sounded cool on the brochure our budget could not have afforded the 100$ ticket price, and now as I looked down into the black water and imagined all sorts of horrible aqua monsters just waiting for the opportunity for an Emily meal, I was intensely glad I was securely in a boat. We passed into glowworm grotto and I was amazed. None of the pictures I had seen did it justice, it was an awesome sight. Hundreds and Hundreds of tiny glowing dots all along the roof of the cave, everything around us was pitch black and the only sounds you could hear was the water against the rocks and the occasional dripping of stalagtites forming.
I was taken back at how bright the glowworms were when they were all together, it was simply gorgeous. Our boat was pulled along to the exit of the cave where we got a picture taken while in the boat, blinking in the sunlight. As I am sure that this picture equalled the gloriousness of the Van picture taken at the Zorb Beth and I didn't bother to look at it. There was a light shower raining down onto the green canopy of trees which overhung the little river our boat had just been on and once again I marvelled at how beautiful New Zealand is. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the cave which was the only downside but it would be impossible to capture a glowworm anyway so I will just have to tuck it away in my memories. We made our way back to the car where Vicki was and immediatly retold the incident about the Windbreaker man. It was 11:15 and we decided we had time for a quick bite to eat before going to the Shearing Show at the Angora Bunny shed. So it was onto Morepork cafe ( A morepork is a type of owl they have in NZ and the symbol for the cafe is, just guessed it, a really cute owl) so we clearly had to go there because as you all know, I love owls. We ordered pizza, and I kept watching the clock nervous about missing our 12:00 shearing shed show. Finally at 11:40 our pizza arrived, unfortunately it was a little burnt on the base, but the woman said that she could either take 5$ off our pizza or bake us another one. We ate the slightly burnt one which wasn't bad at all, in fact it was amazing pizza, and as a bonus we got 5$ off each one. For those of you who know me well, I don't eat fast. But if there ever was a reason for me to eat fast, this was it. The sight of an angora bunny being sheared was on the line here. We wolfed down our pizza in record time and made it to the shearing shed at 12:05 I literally ran inside the shop which was painted to look like a barn and bypassed the cute bunny souvieners and merged into the small crowd around a little table. We made it in time for most of the show.
There was a table in the back of the room where the shearing took place, and there was a little platform on the table with a smooth groove cut into it. In the groove there was a bunny laying on it's side, it's arms and legs stretched out and tied with little ropes to keep it still. A woman was leaning over it with a small pair of slow moving shears and gently shearing the soft fur from the bunny. It was a very big bunny, with large ears that had little furry tassel looking things hanging from the tips. At first I was a bit disturbed by the bunny being stretched like that, and it obviously did not enjoy the shears being near it. The woman finished shearing the side of it and then flipped it gently onto it's stomach where she continued to shear the fur off. After he was mostly shorn we were invited to come up and pet it while it was still on the 'bunny rack' It was only until it was my turn to pet the bunny that I noticed it was falling asleep on the rack and that settled any doubts I had about the cruel rabbit treatment. He was obviously quite comfortable to be up there. The fur was incredibly soft and of course I was in Emily heaven. After we shuffled past the bunny rack we were able to go to pet one of the bunnies that hadn't been shorn. It was enormous. We are talking way bigger then a cat. It was a mega bunny, with soft soft fur and a little motor for a nose. There was brief discussion of how to steal this bunny but in the end we left it for others to enjoy. There was lots of bunny video footage taken. I wanted to buy some angora yarn to knit something but it was too expensive for me to do that so I left with just a magnet for the fridge.
So we hopped back into pegasus and off we flew to Wellington. The drive took about 8 hours and we drove through the desert road ( home to wild horses and the north island training site for the army) We did stop to take a few pictures along the way, it was beautiful and the land was covered in snow, but the road was completely clear. 8 hours later we dropped off Vicki and Beth and I returned Pegasus to the car place. We were then back in trusty Thunder Bat, my lovely little New Zealand car. Beth and I were pretty tired so we just got some fish and chips and came home to chill out. The next morning which was Saturday, Beth and I and Shaun went to Te Papa ( the New Zealand museum) to see the Lord of the Rings exhibition and the other exhibitions they have there. It was really interesting, I had been there when my parents were here and the Lord of the Rings exhibition was amazing. You get to see all the costumes and props from the movies as well as learn about the technology of how they did everything. That night Beth and I went to my favorite Italian place IL Piccolo. And then went to the botantical gardens where we tried to climb up to the top of a tree to see the fantastic view of the harbor but only made it about halfway up. We weren't really in tree climbing attire. That night we met up with Shaun and went to a few places downtown in Wellington. Then back to my place because we needed to get up early the next day ( Beth had her flight back home). We had to wake up at 7am and I took beth to the airport where we had some breakfast and then I saw her to her plane. It was really sad to say goodbye because it was so awesome to have her here. It was so amazing to see a familiar face from home, and to show her around New Zealand and where I live. It just reminded me of how far away from home I really am. I don't regret my decision to come here but there are times when it is really difficult to be so far away. Beth, I am so glad that you got to come, I will remember this trip forever and I have all the photos to prove it actually happened.
I am glad that everyone has been enjoying the travelblog, I will put up an update next week on any news from the film job and anything that has been going on in my less-exciting-back-to-normal life. One tidbit is that I am actually getting good at making things from scratch! In fact just yesterday I baked a pumpkin roll, with cream cheese filling, all from scratch and it was actually good! I had tea with Shaun's grandmother and aunt and uncle today and they all loved it. In fact his Aunt said it was divine and she is a profession caterer! So until the next major baking catastrophy I will be feeling proud of myself! Lots of love, Emily

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Photos

Cable Car
Us in the cable car going into town

Glowworm!
Me and Beth in front of the exit to the glowworm cave

Angora Bunny!
Us with the Angora Bunny at the shearing shed, I know this isn't the best picture of me but look at the excitement on my face being near this bunny. Also notice the ear tassels!!

Desert Road
Picture from the desert road, home of wild horses

Beth
Beth before we went out

Beth at St George
We hung out at St George for a while ( where shaun works)

Bucket fountain
Us in front of the famous Bucket fountain downtown on Beth's last night

Comments

[Marian mom]

enjoying your blogs
Hi Emmie, Loved seeing the huge Angora bunny. I am trying to visulize the glow worms. Will write later. Love, Mom

[Aunt Jane]

Enjoying the blogs!
Emeroo-loved the blogs-as it has brought back many memories of NZ. Nama alerts me each time we get one-she too has enjoyed keeping up with you through them. I owe you a snail mail letter!! take care-we are all rooting for you!