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12~3~00 to 12~8~00

AUCKLAND

After returning from the roadtrip, I stayed in Auckland for a week, earning my accomodation by passing out flyers three hours a day (with one day off). It was very interesting work, and I got to do a lot of people-watching. But in the end, I was glad to be done with it.

12~11~00 to 12~18~00

What Zach and I Did on our Summer Vacation

My friend Zach came to visit me in New Zealand for a week in mid-December. It was wonderful to see him and we had all sorts of adventures. Here is a run-down of our action-packed week:

I picked him up at the airport on Monday morning. We walked around various parts of the city and saw the Auckland museum. Zach was jet-lagged, so we watched a movie and turned in early.

The next day, we hopped on a bus and went to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. In the Antarctic part, they had a lot of exhibits and info about an expedition to the South Pole, and penguins! Real penguins! It was fun to watch them swim around and walk on the ice. They have a specially controlled environment which is even varied by season.


As much of a stingray as I could fit in the frame

The next part had two aquariums, one for regular fish and one for stingrays and sharks. It was one of those aquariums where you walk through a clear tube and the fish swim around you. The stingrays were huge. Very cool, and we got to see feeding time where divers fed the sharks and the rays by hand.

After that, we went to the beach at Mission Bay and relaxed in the sun for a while. That night, we had dinner in the Sky Tower, which was a lot like the Space Needle, only higher. The weather was Seattley (cloudy), and the landscape included a big harbour. But it was nice, and the food was good. We meant to go out that night, but both ended up too tired and went to bed instead.

On Wednesday, we got picked up and taken to the rental car company. We filled out some paperwork and were handed the keys to a nice Toyota Corolla. After a quick bite, we drove to Waitomo, famous for its glow worms.

We arrived and did a whirlwind tour in two hours. We saw the glow-worm caves - a walk through some interesting caverns, followed by a short boat ride through a grotto filled with glow-worms. It was pretty cool; they really glowed. But they are so small that each one is just a tiny speck in the dark.

Then, we went to this place called Woodlyn Park where you can drive your own jetboat. (Jetboats were invented in New Zealand and are exceptionally agile and can operate in shallow water. Most lakes and rivers near the larger towns have jetboat rides.) As far as I know, it is the only place in NZ where you can do this. It's on a closed course, with a jetboat that is slower than the big commercial ones, but plenty fast enough, thank you. It was really fun. I thought it would be a great job to be a commercial jetboat driver.

It was then about quarter to five. We really wanted to see kiwi birds (I still had not seen one), so we rushed to the Otorohangi Kiwi House, which was closing at five. We begged, and they charged us a reduced rate and let us stick our heads in and watch the kiwis for a few minutes before they got put to bed for the night. I'm glad I actually got to see some.

Thursday morning, we checked out, drove to Rotorua, and headed to the Wai-O-Tapu volcanic park. We walked around the trail there (about an hour or so). There were a lot of interesting things to see: pools of water in many colours, drifting clouds of steam, interesting rock formations, and lots of hot, bubbling water.

Near the Wai-O-Tapu park is a little pond full of bubbling mud. We followed signs to it, and were fascinated. Each hot spot boiled at its own pace, some leisurely, others furiously. The slower ones were hypnotizing to watch as the mud stretched and finally burst and settled. The faster ones spewed mud about a foot in the air! It was quite a sight and we spent a while there, taking pictures and laughing at the mud.



Afterward, we spent a quick half hour or so at the Polynesian Spa, one of several spa facilities in town offering mineral pools as well as spa services. We soaked in various stinky but relaxing mineral pools. (The whole town smells like sulphur so you get used to it after a while.) It was a nice place, with landscaping around the various pools.

We then rushed back to the hostel, showered hurriedly, and got picked up for a Maori meal which we had booked. It was attended by about five busloads of people from all over the world. We went to a Maori marae (village) that was specially constructed for this. At first, it bugged me that it wasn't a real village, but you really do need special facilities to accomodate a couple hundred people a night.

Each bus driver selected a chief from among the passengers, and instructed us on protocol. Women were not eligible to be chief.

When we arrived, the chiefs stood in front of the others, and we were greeted by Maori chanting and a warrior who came out and made a fierce display of weapon swinging and aggressive posturing before presenting a peace offering. Our chiefs accepted on our behalf and we went into the "village" and walked around for 10-15 minutes observing Maoris doing traditional things - singing, weapons practice, tattooing, games.

Then we were invited into the concert hall for a concert and performance. It was pretty interesting and not too long (we were all hungry by then and I thought I'd be impatient). They did some singing and dancing, as well as instructing us about traditional customs and weapons.

Then we went to the dining hall for a buffet dinner (the "hangi"). All the food is cooked in the ground, kind of like in a luau. There were potatoes and carrots that tasted a little of dirt, but the meat (chicken, pork, and lamb) was all cooked to perfection and came with gravy and mint sauce.

We had about 20 minutes after dinner to walk around the Tribal Village, a handful of shops selling very nice Maori artwork and other things. Before long, we were herded back onto the buses.

On our bus, the bus driver announced that we were all going to sing on the way home. He would call out a country, and people from there would sing a local song. As you may know, I don't sing in front of people, so I was feeling a bit stressed about having to refuse. Fortunately, there were two other Americans on the bus who piped right up with, "My baloney has a first name..."

All in all, it was an interesting evening, but I really felt like a Tourist. Photography was welcomed all night long, but I took no photos. I felt funny taking pictures of these people as if they were in a zoo. I enjoyed learning what I did, and eating the food... but it felt manufactured. In their defense, the whole thing is Maori owned and operated, and I think they did the best they could at presenting one's culture and food to a huge group of people in a couple of hours.

The next day, Zach and I went to the Agrodome - a place with several adventure activities, plus a farm show and tour.

We skipped the farm stuff (because of our plans for the next day) and signed up for some activities after some thought and discussion. Zach surprised the hell out of me by signing up for the "Fourgasm" (all four activities).

We began with a jetboat ride together. The boat was much faster than the one we had driven. It was also in a closed course and was exciting; the driver spun us in a 360-degree turn at the end.

Next, we went to the Zorbing hill. Zorbing is a New Zealand invention wherein you climb into a big plastic ball and roll down a hill in it. You can do it dry - strapped in a spread-eagle position inside - or wet, where you are thrown in with a bucket of soapy water. I chose not to Zorb - it just didn't look very fun. Adventure Man Zach was all for it and changed into some borrowed clothes for the wet version. They drove him up the hill in a pickup truck which was towing a trailer carrying the Zorb ball. At the top, Zach climbed in, they added the water, and he rolled down. It was funny to watch him try to stay standing, fail, then tumble around inside the ball. Amazingly, he actually enjoyed it.

A truck towed the ball uphill	Putting in the soapy water	Rolling...
Coming to a stop	Zach emerges	He was wet but happy

He dried off and we went to the Swoop Bungy. This is the thing which I could not believe I got Zach to do. He is afraid of heights and has always vigorously declined when I invited him to do such things in the past. The Swoop Bungy is kind of like a giant swing. You (and up to two friends) are strapped into a cocoon-like harness, then winched up to the top. When the ripcord is pulled, the riders free-fall most of the way to the bottom, then fall into the arc of the swing, and swing back and forth for a while. When we began to descend, poor Zach stiffened up and made an "ulp" noise. We reached the bottom and zoomed by the ground on the upswing. The rest was just swinging back and forth, which Zach enjoyed more. I loved the whole thing, of course.

We finished with something called Dirt Thingz... motorized skateboard-type things with knobby tires. It didn't interest me, so I watched Zach do it and took some pictures.



Next on the agenda was the Skyline Gondola, a gondola ride to the top of a smallish mountain. On top, they had, among other (mostly closed) things, two luge courses. We sat in these little go-kart-type things and rolled down winding courses. The handlebars served as the brakes when pulled toward the rider. There were two courses - the "scenic" and the "advanced". You're required to do the scenic one first. It was very vibratey and I felt like my brain was shaken loose! We had pre-bought our rides, so we headed back up a chairlift and went down the advanced course. That one was more fun, because it went by faster and there were some curves and drops to grab one's attention. We did it twice before taking the gondola back down. (Later, we found out that a lot of people get injured on the luge course, so we were lucky.)

That night at dinner, Zach obtained a Santa hat, which he wore for most of the rest of the trip. It was a surprisingly good conversation starter and got him a lot of attention.

The next day, Saturday, we awoke and checked out. Most of the day was spent driving as we went from Rotorua, back up through Auckland, to Warkworth and eventually Paihia in the Bay of Islands. In Warkworth, we stopped at Sheepworld. We were expecting something bigger, but it seems that the daily sheep shows are the highlight, and we missed that. Instead, we walked around and fed the sheep, goats, ducks, rabbits, and chickens with some pellet-food-stuff we bought. It was fun anyway, and I got some good pictures of Zach communing with the animals.

The next day in Paihia, we signed up for a four-hour kayak tour, not around the Bay of Islands, but around a river running into it. We kayaked through a forest of mangroves (trees with exposed roots that grow in tidal waters). For a stretch, our guide unfurled a special kayak sail, and we were powered by the wind. At the halfway point, we kayaked right up to the bottom of a waterfall, so close that the spray hit our faces. It was a fun trip.

Then, Zach and I were walking around Paihia, a small beachfront town, when I noticed an ad for paragliding up to 1000 feet. Somehow I managed to talk Zach into doing it. The paragliding people could only take us right away, so we ran onto the dock. Zach was apprehensive, but said it was better than he thought it would be. I loved it, of course. We took lots of pictures.






Zach licks, er, likes the scenery

That night, we drove most of the way back to Auckland before stopping for the night. The next day, we returned the car, got Zach's photos developed, then went to the airport so I could see him off.




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