The adventures begin!

I had to wake up before 7 yet again the next day to catch the Magic Bus. It was so early in the morning, I was the first customer at a McD's nearby where I grabbed a much needed coffee (which is actually pretty decent in NZ, and in HK I noticed, compared to the McD's here - our McD's really suck compared to the rest of the world hahaha). I actually had more than enough time to catch the bus, because I ended up sitting at the Rotorua i-Site for a while waiting for the bus. I had a brief conversation with a Maori dad and his son who were waiting here for a tow truck for their truck, and he thought I was an indigenous Canadian before I told him I was actually Chinese! So apparently to some natives, I also look native now? Hahaha. For the rest of the trip, I basically hopped from town to town, spending usually a night in each place, because they are generally small towns and don't have much more to offer once you complete whatever tourist activities you came to do. But it was a pleasant start to what would be an awesome day. Today's itinerary: onwards to a town called Taupo, but a brief stop at Waitomo first. I'll let the pictures do the talking, for this post, but adrenaline thrills, here I come!

A Coke sign in Arabic (I think?) at a Burger King (where we made a quick stop for breakfast)! Taken with my phone's camera; the quality is not too shabby.


Some of the scenery along the drive to Waitomo. One of the best parts of NZ is the scenery - unfortunately I had to see it through a bus window while passing by (if I had the money, I could have stopped wherever and whenever I wanted with a rental vehicle).


Rabbit shaving! It looks like rabbit torture, but apparently it's the only safe way to shave the rabbit without cutting its skin and it's actually not supposed to hurt. And apparently they've been trained to not be afraid of shearing, and they've been bred over the years where they can't naturally shed their fur anymore and require regular shaving now...I'm just telling you what they told us, don't throw blood at me PETA hahaha. They're Angora rabbits, and their fur is amazingly soft! I did not expect to see this at all at the beginning of the day haha.


All shaved!


A rabbit with all its fur still.


Next stop, blackwater rafting in Waitomo's famous glowworm caves! Me in my wet suit! Trust me, blackwater rafting sounds a lot cooler than it actually is. It consists of sitting in a tube, floating down the gentle streams inside the caves while in the dark so that you can see the glowworms on the ceilings. There are a few companies in the area offering blackwater rafting, but unfortunately the company that Magic Bus has chosen to associate with doesn't exactly offer the most exciting package - there's another blackwater rafting company (that is supposedly the original one) that offers real adrenaline rafting activity (along with abseiling). That's the one I actually wanted to do but couldn't because it didn't fit in with the time schedule of the bus (and I didn't want to stay an extra night in Waitomo since they town is tiny and the 2 hostels there both had terrible reviews). The rest of the photos were taken with one of the guide's cameras (obviously I paid extra for the photos), so I apologize now for the blurry, out of frame photos (honestly, if they're going to charge for photos, you'd think they'd do a decent job of taking them).


On our way down into the caves!


Without our head lamps, it really was pitch black inside the caves.


The silk stuff the glowworms produce to trap passing insects.


Some of the many unusual formations hanging from the ceiling.


Resting before we move on to the water. The ceiling had my interest haha.


Some bones that were found in the caves when they were first discovered in modern times - believed to belong to the Maori or the very first discoverers or passing animals that fell into the caves.


Walking along the wall - remember, it was pitch black while we were walking.


The first "waterfall" jump (probably a metre in height). I'm in the 5th photo...yeah, one of the only completely out of frame hahaha. They say that the caves are exactly as they found it, but that's obviously a lie - they worked on parts of it to make it safer. For the second of 2 "waterfalls," they had installed a slide over the water, so you basically just slid down...very boring (and obviously they didn't take any pictures of this part). There were some very narrow squeezes though in the very beginning of the walk into the caves.


Floating down the stream (I'm in the 3rd and 4th photos) - a very gentle ride.


The water actually got pretty deep near the final part of the caves, so we actually had to swim through.


On the way back out of the caves.

All-in-all, I'd say if you're on a budget, skip it (unless you prefer gentle rides). If you're seeking adventure and can afford to stay the extra night (assuming you're on a bus), do it with one of the other companies (I heard really good things about the more adventurous packages the other companies offer). It was really beautiful in the caves though - pitch black and all you see looking up are many tiny greenish-white dots (the glowworms), almost like stars. Now please enjoy some generic photos the company through in on the photo CD that they've taken during previous tours down (I figure since it's paid for, I might as well share them right?), which include a close-up of the glowworms, and some bugs we didn't see ourselves.



A favourite pastime of the bus drivers: "sheep olympics" - honking the horn as the bus passes by a large herd of sheep beside the road, and watching they sprint away in fear hahaha.


Some scenery as we approached Taupo (you'll notice it got less cloudy as we got closer to Taupo - a good thing for me as you'll soon find out!).


Pulling into Taup, famous for the mountains in the background, one of them known to Lord of the Ring fans as Mt. Doom.

And now, the best part of my day (and obviously one of the highlights of my trip of NZ)...skydiving!

Waiting in the hangar to suit up. It's funny, I was not nervous at all, I was actually really excited. But when I did the jump, I don't remember feeling anything (which is a real shame, I would've rather felt fear or nervousness than nothing at all). I think my brain shut itself off as a way of dealing with the idea of jumping from 15,000 feet (4.572 km) - yup, I went all out and chose the highest jump package with DVD and photos (obviously not cheap, $499 NZD in total, but it was worth it). It's supposed to be 60 seconds of freefall (before they pull the parachute), but to be quite honest, it felt something like 10 seconds (everyone always says it feels a lot shorter than it actually is)! The only thing I remember from while I was falling was reminding myself to breathe - I didn't want to pass out from excitement mid-air hahaha. But I really think my brain did shut off - if you watch my freefall DVD, you'll see that my arms did not change position once hahaha. They were bent quite far back because I was just going with the flow and allowing the air to blow my arms back. I also do remember the goggles being a bit annoying - as I fell, they started to ride up under my glasses towards the bottom of my eye. The feeling is nothing like I can describe though - you're just falling, the earth rushing towards you, constantly being hit in the face with what feels like strong gusts of air - I loved it hahaha. The view was spectacular too - after the parachute is pulled, you float down down over Lake Taupo, a huge crisp blue lake surrounded by awesome mountainous scenery (and its the largest lake by surface area in NZ). The view was slightly tarnished only by how cloudy and grey it had suddenly become once under the clouds (you can see what I mean in the last few photos). We had been told it was cloudy and windy over Taupo since the morning, and the chances of jumping were looking slim, until we heard some good news later on in the day that the clouds were starting to clear, so as long as the sky kept getting clearer, we could jump when we got to Taupo. It turns out after my group went, the clouds had already quickly returned, and the groups waiting after us couldn't jump anymore - I got really lucky! The worst part of the whole experience was the physical part of the parachute ride down, especially right after the parachute was pulled - as I was pulled into an upright position, the harness yanked right up between my thighs with a lot of force, tightening the area around my crotch...let's just say it was uncomfortable hahaha. And every time my tandem jump master turned the parachute left or right, the harness would pull up hard on one side (depending which way we turned) - the area between my thighs was quite sore after haha. Anyway, enjoy the stellar photos, I still feel excited looking at them now and thinking about what I actually did!

It's too bad they didn't take any photos (or video) of the view below after the freefall, it really was stunning.


My souvenir t-shirt.

Back in Taupo, I was so tired after all the activities today that I didn't even bother going out to check out Taupo's night life (which is quite vibrant for such a small town, but it's almost entirely due to the backpackers and travellers). Plus, it was grey and getting windy by the time I got to my hostel. I stayed at a hostel called Tiki Lodge (not on the recommended list). Just another hostel; nothing really stood out, though there were a surprising amount of screaming little kids dressed up in costumes in the next room (hostels are as common as hotels here), and a lot of flies in the bathrooms and in the room. I met a guy from Vancouver who was staying in my room though, it was cool talking with someone from Canada. He was really lucky because he was exploring all of NZ solo in a rented car and he was younger than me (what I really would've liked to do if I had money)! He even bought me a beer from the nearby beer store and we had a pretty funny time trying to explain what a toque was to the 3 other people in our room from the UK (which they refer to as beanies).

I only left the hostel to grab some dinner, and found this Chinese take-out restaurant. Pretty decent food, cooked by Cantonese Chinese (they were talking in Cantonese) even though it was Westernized Chinese food (with Westernized Chinese take-out box to match - amazingly the first I've actually gotten in my entire life!).

I got lucky with the weather for skydiving, but not so lucky with the weather for the next day, as it was forecast to rain in the Taupo area, which forced me to change my plans. I originally had planned to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, rated as one of the best (if not the best) same-day hikes in the world, which is conveniently accessible from Taupo, using Taupo as a base. But all the rain would make it harder to complete the hike and ruin the gorgeous scenery that the hike is known for. So I spent just the one night in Taupo, and had to just hope the weather would be better when I made my way back to Auckland through Taupo when returning from the south.