Skydiving, surfing, and spelunking

As you can see by the title of the post, over the past two days I have done several pretty ridiculous activities. But I'll first start where I left off from before. So I left Auckland (thankfully as it was becoming my Bruges, if you have seen the movie), and hopped on a Stray bus tour. It was a really great way of meeting a lot of cool people from all over the world (most seemed to be Brits or Irish though, which was pretty funny) and an easy way for transportation around the country. The first stop was in Hahei where we walked around a beautiful place called Cathedral Cove (which reminded me of Halong Bay in Vietnam as it had several massive pieces of land jutting out from the sea). At night, we went to the Hot Water Beach at low tide to sit in holes we dug out as when you dig through the sand there, boiling water comes through and you can sit in the holes like a jacuzzi. It was an amazing experience and the stars shining through were like nothing I've ever seen before. The next day we headed to the famous surfing town of Raglan where I gave my first go at attemping to catch a wave and surf. The instructional 10 minutes made me think it was going to be a piece of cake, but obviously when I was in the strong current and attemping to do it with a massive surfboard and my wetsuit on, it was really difficult. I managed to catch about 7 waves out of the 50+ times I tried. But I'll tell you what, for the 5 seconds or so when you're riding that wave, you feel pretty damn cool (Silver, I'm almost as good as Butchy Yost in Juan de Cinci). So after surfing, we stayed at a cool hut back in the woods for the night where we did some flying foxes in the dark (basically a zip-line) and had a grand ol' time.

We then woke up early and headed to Waitomo, which is where all of the caves are that you can go into and do some spelunking, abseiling, rock climbing, and see the famous glow worms (which I was told are technically maggots as they're not in the pupa stage yet, but "worms" was more markatable than maggots). I picked the most extreme caving option (as that's obviously my MO), and it was pretty damn insane. Me and a Swiss guy on my bus were the only two doing it, and we were able to be underground (probably about 100 feet at times) for 3 hours and we did 3 abseils (climbing down on ropes), 1 of which was in a waterfall, some rock climbing, saw tons of glow worms, and just explored around.

After an awesome time in the caves, we headed on to Maketu, where we were part of a traditional Maori ceremony called a Marahe, which was a big feast of food (including Seinfeld's favorite, the infamous Mutton), and then a bunch of Maori dances, one called a haka, which I have put a picture of below. Basically all of the guys do these war-chanting songs and the women follow with their own parts. It was a great time and we actually slept all in one big room too as the Maori traditionally do.

In the morning, we headed to Rotorua, which is a pretty big tourist spot because of it's famous thermal baths. The whole city is in a big caldera after a volcano under the ground exploded millions of years ago. The cool part is that there are still tons of spots where there is boiling mud that you can view and also the whole town smells of sulphur, which was quite displeasing. It was a real nice stop, which we did on the way to the highlight of the trip so far - Taupo, which is where I am now and is considered the skydiving capital of the world. I think roughly 40,000 people skydive each year here. Lake Taupo, surrounds the city and is the biggest lake in the country and is the size of Singapore. So, shortly after getting into town, the whole bus (including myself) opted to head straight to the Skydive Taupo to be tossed from a wee plane at dizzying heights of 15,000 feet. I was in the last plane to go up and had a nice amount of time to think about whether I was going to go through with it. I am very glad I did as it was one of the coolest experiences and biggest rushes in my life. You put on a jumpsuit and get into the plane (which for some reason is pink) and off you go, nose of the plane pointed straight to the sky, and head up to the highest point you can jump from in tandem of 15,000 feet. After a girl went first (she was only doing 12,000 feet), my calm manner instantly become a bit shaken as I saw her scream and get sucked under the plane and headed towards earth. Finally it was my turn and the guy I was tandemed to (Laci, from Hungary), asked me if I was ready (not like I really had a choice in the matter) and away I went. Free falling to the ground at 120 mph is quite the adrenaline rush. The wind is whipping in your face and you can see the entire northern island of the country. There is so much to see that the minute-plus free fall and subsequent five-minute glide after the parachute comes out goes by very quickly. I made it safely to the ground and for the rest of the day had a smile on my face and remnants of a rush still going through my legs.

Now I am still in Taupo and will be hopping back on the bus tomorrow with a new driver (the last was a slovenly drunk fellow with one leg named "Woody") and a new group of people. It's a funny dynamic how you meet a lot of cool and then you become very close with them for a short while and then people leave and new people hop on. Fortunately I have met a lot of interesting people from Ireland, the UK, and Holland and will most likely see them later on in the route. Tomorrow I am going to the National Park, which is where you can do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which is supposed to be the best day-hikes in the county. It is also where Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings was filmed.

I appreciate all of the posts and I hope you all are well.

Justin