"Push Out the Jive, Bring In The Love"

October 12th, 2011

WAITOMO CAVES

On Wednesday morning, Scott, Nikki, and Claire all squished into Bertie and headed off to the Waitomo region. We booked the Lost World 7 hour Epic caving adventure with Waitomo Adventures. In our booking confirmation email, they warned us that if there has been too much rain, this trip would not be able to run, but they have many other trips that we would still be able to do in exchange.

We arrived just before 10am after only an hour drive...in the pouring rain. Not surprisingly, our initial trip was rained out, but they had upgraded us to another trip. Basically, they took 2 of their 4 hour trips and sent us on one in the morning, and another in the afternoon.

Nine of us and two guides hopped into a van and drove out to the first cave. It is a really neat geographical area in NZ because above ground it just looks like the typical rolling hills farmland. But underneath the hills and farmland are a whole bunch of different caves. They referred to this area as the swiss cheese of NZ. SO many holes.

HAGGAS HONKING HOLES (10am-2pm)

We drove up through a farmers field until we came to a big shed. We changed into wet suits and strapped on our helmets and after a quick safety briefing and lesson on how to abseil, we walked off into the middle of the field where there was a small little opening down into the cave. We climbed down a little ladder and entered the cave.

We then proceeded to make our way through the network of caves that involved 4 abseils (abseil is just another word for rappelling), crawling, squeezing, and exploring the incredible narrow, wet cave. The largest abseil of this trip was 20m but we eventually found ourselves 70m below ground. 

Scott being a goof as he abseils down a waterfall

These limestone caves were created over 30 million years ago, when the area was beneath the sea. Volcanic activity caused the layers of limestone to buckle and bend and rise up out of the water. They maintained channels of water flow throughout it, and over millions of years large caverns were eventually formed. The continuous exposure to rainwater flowing into the caves reacts with the limestone creating beautiful calcium carbonate formations that hang from the ceiling and walls. These take hundreds of years to form, as they only grow 1 cubic centimeter per 100 years.

                     Nikki just LOVING it!

At one point, the guides gathered the group and gave us instructions for the next abseil. We were to abseil down the waterfall, and as soon as you get to the bottom, step left to undo the rope (so you don't continue getting showered by the waterfall), then, go right. Sounds easy enough. So, one at a time we do it. Every single one of us had the same experience. You get down, finding yourself alone in a space no bigger than a closet. You step left and unbuckle as instructed. Then look right...nothing. Then look left...nothing. Then look all around...nothing. Uhmmm... where are we supposed to go? Remembering that they said go right (or the guide up top yelling down at you to go right) and knowing that obviously the people who went before you went somewhere... you had to search a little harder. You got down on your hands and knees and crawled through the waterfall and to your amazement there was a small little hole. It was so small that it was still not super obvious that was the way to go until you poked your head in it a bit and saw the glow of the lights from the people ahead of you.

Scott squeezing through an itsy bitsy worm hole and Claire rock climbing.

 

Then the guide has everyone sit around in this one particular part of the cave and tells us to turn our headlamps off. The ceiling of the cave lit up with glowworms. We learned a bunch of stuff about them... but I don't want to get into it all, so if you want to learn about them, check out the Planet Earth episode. They were quite spectacular to see.

We worked our way through the cave in about 2 and a half hours, stopping for a chocolate bar and juice half way through for a little sugar boost. We rock climbed our way back out of the cave and ended back up in the farmers field. We went back to the shed for a warm shower, and then back to the main office in Waitomo for some lunch before heading out for the second trip.

LOST WORLD TOUR (4 Hour) 3pm-7:30pm

For this trip there were only 5 of us (Scott, Nikki, Claire, a guy from LA, and our guide Sarah). We jumped back into the van and drove out to another farmers field where they had another equipment shed. We got all geared up in our blue jumpsuits and helmets and made our way to the cave.

This cave was very different from the last cave. The entrance to the cave was a long narrow opening in the farmers field that opened up into a massive cavern as you descend down into it. We came to a platform at the entrance to the cave and looked down (Big mistake).

Looking down into the cave. AMAZING!

We all get hooked up and after several safety checks, and we get ourselves over the edge so that we are all hanging in our harnesses 100m above the bottom of the cave.

Stepping over that edge and letting yourself hang was the only scary part of it. Once we were comfortably hanging, it was all fun and games from there.

Once Sarah (the guide) was all hooked up and ready to go, the 5 of us abseiled down the 100m together. We were all roped to Sarah, meaning we all had to go at the same pace as her and the slowest person in the group. It took about 15 minutes to reach the bottom. The trick the boys learned was to wait for Sarah to pass them, then drop fast as far as they could go. And then near the bottom, you could get a real good bounce on. SO much fun!

(Above) Looking back up at where we just came from.

(Right) Looking back at the opening of the cave and the abseil from deeper inside the cave.

Once we all unhooked ourselves we freely explored the intricate rocky cave. There was a waterfall flowing along one side of the cave, trees and bush along the walls of the cave, and the air was full of mist, all which made it a spectacular sight to see.

There was one scary moment when we heard a big thump over on the other side of the cave, only to look and see that a big tree stump had fallen away into the cave bringing a whole bunch of debris with it. Luckily we weren't standing there at that moment. EEEKKK!

To keep our minds off the falling tree, we had some fun taking some cool pictures.

The Explorer

 The Thinker                                                             The Warrior

       A domestic dispute                                     Nikki trying not to look stupid.

Checking out more Glowworms!

  

We worked our way deeper into the cave, out of the little bit of light that was coming in through the mouth of the cave, and into the dark. We climbed up a ways until we came to the caves exit.

Nikki and Claire rock climbing.

We rock climbed as far up the cave as is possible. But remember we came down 100m, meaning we have to get up 100m to get out. The rock climb part of the exit was super fun and exciting and got us about 70m up.

Then we come to a great big sketchy 30m metal ladder. UGH! Nikki was not so thrilled when she first learned that this is how we'd be getting out of the cave. She had learned earlier in the day that she does not particularly like ladders and even on a way shorter one, her legs would start shaking.

This picture on the right is the ladder, but this was not exactly what it looked like for us. It was after 7pm and was getting dark outside, so there was no light coming in from above. The only light was what was coming from our very dim headlamps. It was wet and muddy with rain drops coming from above.

"PUSH OUT THE JIVE. BRING IN THE LOVE" was the pre-climb pep talk.

One at a time, we made our way up the ladder. For Nikki, the beginning was good, then the legs started getting a little shaky, but she got into a rhythm and made it to the top. Because it was so muddy, every few rungs you'd have to stop, hook yourself on with your elbow and wipe your hands off. Claire had a similar experience as Nikki, but Scott just motored his way up with no problems. 

That was definitely the scariest part of the entire day (for Nikki and Claire at least... Scott loved it) but it was quite the accomplishment to have done it.

 Still smiling after the 30m ladder climb!

We arrived back at the office at about 7:30pm and the three of us found somewhere for dinner and then drove home to Hamilton. The whole day was amazing and absolutely worth every penny. It is a must-do for anyone who comes here.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

September 30th - October 3rd

AUCKLAND

On Friday morning, Nikki left Scott (and Bertie) in Hamilton and took a bus up to Auckland for the weekend to meet up with Claire, a co-worker and friend from Calgary, who had arrived in Auckland that same morning. Since Scott is nearing the end of the semester and is bombarded with assignments that are all due in the coming week, we decided it was a good opportunity for a little girl time.

I met up with Claire at Queenstreet Backpackers. When we went to check in, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that we had been booked into a twin room instead of the quad share room. We were really happy to have our own space and room for the weekend. It was a pretty nice hostel right in the middle of downtown, which made it easy and convenient to get around from here.

We spent the morning chatting and catching up on all the details and events from the last 3 months (OK... I will admit it... she caught me up on all the gossip).

Then we grabbed some lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant (Mmmm... mussels and salmon pasta) where the chatting/gossiping continued for a couple hours.  We walked around downtown for a bit, checked out the Sky Tower and waited to see someone jump from it. Claire planned on doing the jump at some point this weekend, but wasn't feeling it today because she was so tired and feeling icky from jet-lag. Plus... she was a tad nervous and needed some more time to work up the courage.

Maybe tomorrow.

At about 4pm, we made our way over to the Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium.

First we went to the Antarctic Encounter, where we boarded a snowcat which took us through the freezing cold home of a colony of 80 penguins. Brrrr!

Then we went through the shark tank. Literally... walked right through it.

Duunn Dun. Duuun dun. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun BOM BOM!

 

And then we saw lots and lots of other fish and other marine life.

Crabs and an octopus.

 Nemo and Dory together!

And lots of different species of seahorses and much much more.

View of downtown Auckland from outside the aquarium.

On our way back downtown, I almost lost Claire. Not in like a `I can`t find her lost` way, but more of a `Passed out sleeping lost` kinda way. haha. When we got back downtown, she was tempted to make her way to bed, but she decided to fight it. She got a diet coke and kept on trucking. She got her second wind just in time to go out for dinner at a place nearby our hostel called Fort Street Union.

She forced herself to stay awake and actually made it until about 10:30pm. And then she passed right out while Nikki struggled to get to sleep with all the noise (I guess this is a downfall to staying in a hostel right in the middle of downtown). It was pretty loud, but I managed to get some sleep in between loud moments. Like at 4:30am when they apparently clean the streets and dispose of all the empty beer bottles from all the bars. UGH!

We woke up the next morning feeling great and a little less jet-lagged on Claire`s part. It was a little overcast and windy out, so we decided to wait off on the Sky Jump for now and see what the weather does later in the day. Instead, we basically did a walking tour of the entire Downtown area, Ponsonby Road, K-road, and finished off with the RWC Fan Trail.

We started out by walking along the harbour. We made our way past Queens Wharf, which was filled with rugby fans and festivities. We past the ferry docks and Princes Wharf and then made our way across the foot bridge over the Viaduct Harbour. There we jumped on a cute little trolley which took us around a few blocks and gave us a little history of the area.

Then we made our way to Victoria Park. Normally there is a really great market here, but it is closed for renovations right now. Boo!



Sculptures by John Radford in Western Park



Then we jumped on a bus which dropped us off at the start of Ponsonby Road, which is an area known as 'Auckland`s Hippest Strip'. It was full of neat little shops, cafes, restaurants and parks.

We thought we were in luck when we found the Ponsonby Meat Market. Just what we were looking for (for Claire... of course). And it's not just any ordinary meat market... it's a Superior one!

But... she was disappointed to find out it wasn't THAT kind of meat market.

We continued walking until it met up with K-road, which also has lots of little shops and cafes, but isn't quite as nice of an area. We walked along there until it met up with the RWC Fan Trail, which cut down through a park and had lots of neat little artsy displays along the way.

We were walking the wrong way along the Fan Trail (heading back downtown instead of towards the stadium), so we passed lots of English and Scottish people as they were heading to the game.

Probably some of the best decorated fans of the weekend.

Tracing our path now on google, I figure we walked about 8km and saw most of Auckland's downtown core. After making it back to our hostel and having a little stretch break, we made our way to Huma no Yume restaurant for a sushi dinner! It was fairly good, but ended off on a weird note with a tuna roll that was not as we expected. It was a typical sushi roll but was filled with what tasted like canned flaked tuna. Ewww!

View of the Sky Tower at night from the restaurant.

After dinner we headed out to a pub to check out what was left of the England vs Scotland rugby game. Claire of course was cheering for England, but I was cheering for Scotland, who were ahead in the game until near the end when England made a come back to win. We spent the rest of the night hanging out with a bunch of English and Scottish rugby fans.

The next day we had a pretty relaxed morning in anticipation of the upcoming rugby game. We got all decked out in our red and white Canada gear and headed out to watch the All Blacks play Canada.

We headed down to the Fan Zone on Queens Wharf where they had big tents set up and lots of big screens where fans could watch the game. We were surprised to see there were actually a few other Canadians in the sea of All Blacks fans.

Then we witnessed Canada get destroyed by the All Blacks. It was painful but we were glad to see they were at least able to get 2 tries, making the final score 79-15.

We grabbed some delicious lamb burgers for dinner, and then headed back to the Fan Zone to check out what was going on. The Ireland vs Italy game was up next. Before the game there was an Irish band performing live. They were actually pretty good, and it seemed like all the people dressed in green were enjoying it too. We hung out here until we were ready to head to bed.

Since the weather didn't really clear up at all that day, we went to bed hoping for better weather in the morning so Claire could do the Sky Jump. But we were disappointed to wake up to an even more overcast, windy day.

 

Sky Tower covered in misty clouds on Monday morning.

We decided to go check it out anyways, and sure enough, they were on standby until the weather cleared up. Since we were both leaving Auckland in only a couple hours, she couldn't do it. 

I'm sure she will make up for it this week with other crazy scary things like the canyon swinging and skydiving in Queenstown!

We said our goodbyes later that morning as I jumped on a bus back to Hamilton, and Claire jumped on the shuttle to the airport to start off her week of South Island adventuring. She will be coming back up to Hamilton in a week for some more North Island adventuring.