First Week Recap

I am on campus!!!! Our trip was amazing!

Our first two nights were in Raglan, like a mentioned before. Beautiful beaches!

After Raglan, we headed over to ontrahanga to cave tube! This was the only day it rained out of the entire week traveling, and we luckily, we were underground.

They took us in the middle of farms to enter the cave. I was about to have a heart attack the whole drive there. ALL the roads in New Zealand curve tightly around huge mountains. And of course, the kiwis bust some major butt to on these roads. But I'm alive.

The cave was unbelievable. We were either walking chest deep in water, swimming and chillin down the cave stream in tubes! the majority of the caves are populated with the famous glow worms, which are actually maggits in the larva stage. The actually adults are GIGANTIC crickets with 8 inch spider like legs. And! There was eels swimming in the water! gross gross gross. I kept thinking about the screaching eels from "Princess Bride." It wasn't very comforting.



Anyways! After squeezing into doggy door sized tunnels and jumping off a 7 foot drop off in the cave stream, we made our way out of the caves and into the sub tropical forest, WHICH IS BEAUTIFUL! It's mostly populated with ferns, palm trees (which I think are called cabbage tress) and conifers.



OK! After that, we made our way to Rotorua, which is the city of gas! Literally, the whole area smelled like someone was constantly farting. We started off our day visiting a living Maori village, which was located on a hot spring/geysers area. There, we ate an authentic Maori meal, consisting our cabbage, yams, potatoes, and carrots. They actually utilize the thermal energy for all purposes, including bathing and cooking. So! they place a bag of vegetables directly into the hot spring to cook meals! Apparently the sulfuric compounds and minerals brings out the taste...i think it had a dash of fart seasoning....but still good.

Next, we took a sky lift to the top of the mountain to over look the city, and then "lugged" down the mountain twice. Basically, it's a go-cart propelled by gravity. Very fun!


THEN! we went to the Rainbow Springs, which had a plethora of native wildlife. Most of the animals there seemed to enjoy the company of humans. In particular, a donkey was extremely grateful for the company and didn't want us to leave. He was bit of a cry baby about it....I have videos to post later.

Finally, we got mud paths! The mud in Rotorua is notorious for its healing powers. And after carry our back pack all day, it felt pretty damn good.


We left the city at around midnight to arrive in the Tongoriro, the home of Mt. Doom! We decided to do the 19.4 km (12.05 miles) track climb to the top of this mountain. The only problem was that we didn't arrive at our hostel until 2 AM, and we had to hop on the bus to the base of the volcano at 7 AM. but! 7 hours later, we tracked all 12.05 miles!

So here I am! On campus! I'll fill in those details later.

Mental Note: The E's are pronounced as I's...I had a huge misunderstanding when this tour guide was telling me he was a "trickin guide." meaning track guide for trails....buuuuttt I didn't know that. So naturally, I was like asking him what kind of magic tricks he performed.

I'm so cool.