The Rest of New Zealand!

Hi Again!

I just got back to my Sydney apartment a couple hours ago after the most incredible week in New Zealand! I wanted to write every day but my internet connection was terrible at the hotel so I have a lot to catch you all up on now! When I last left off, I had told you that our sky diving trip had been postponed. Well Wednesday morning we got picked up from our hotel at 9am by the New Zealand Skydive company van. We were driven about 45 minutes outside of the city to an extremely remote area with lots of grass, cows and sheep (pretty much what the majority of New Zealand looks like.) When we got there we found out that there was only one guy to do the tandem jumping, so we were all going to have to go up in the plane separately. At first we didn’t like that idea but then we realized that we would be able to take pictures of each other from the ground which ended up being pretty cool. The guy who strapped us in and did the dive with us was named Roy and he was super friendly and made us all feel really comfortable (or as comfortable as you can feel jumping out of a plane at 12000 feet!!) We had the option to jump either 9000 feet or 12000 feet so obviously I chose the latter. When we got to 12000 feet, Roy had me dangle my feet out of the plane and all I could see were the clouds below me and at that moment I actually felt nervous for the first time. Then Roy pretty much just leaned out and off we went! It was the most unbelievable experience of my life and I would give anything to relive it! The free fall lasted for about 30 seconds, all of which I was screaming and trying and then the parachute opened and it was the most incredible view. Skydiving had always been on my list of things to do in life and it was everything I had hoped it would be! Here are a few pictures of my sky diving experience:

After skydiving, we were all pretty exhausted and went back to our hotel, watched a movie and went to bed. The next day (Thursday) we took a little road trip to a place called the Waitekere Ranges which was an area with lots of forrest and beaches. We pulled over at a spot where we found a waterfall and Laura and I went exploring a bit through the forrest to find the bottom of it. Here are a couple pictures of that little adventure:

We also walked around the beach for a while and just did some exploring. After that, we drove to parnell street which was supposed to be Auckland's big shopping area, but by the time we got there most things were closed. That was probably a good thing though because I wasn't tempted to spend any money! Then we went back to the hotel and tried to get to bed at a decent hour because we were waking up Friday morning at 3:30am to start our drive to Rotorua! The plan was to meet up with 6 of our friends who were travelling up from the South Island and to go sledging which is a form of white water rafting, but instead of being in a raft, you have an individual sled that you stick your arms in and you kick with your feet down the rapids.

We got in the car at about 4am Friday morning with packed lunches and lots of road trip snacks and CDs for the ride. The drive was supposed to take a little over 3 hours and our sledging trip started at 9am so we wanted to leave plenty of time incase we got lost. I drove the whole way and we actually didn't get lost at all and ended up being a couple hours early so we slept in our car until the group we were meeting showed up. At 9am we started to get in our wetsuits and met our guides who all had dreadlocks and seemed pretty crazy! They drove us out to the rapids and gave us a quick lesson on how to use the sledges and then we all jumped in and were on our way down the river! The first rapid was quite a shock...I don't think any of us expected to be completely submerged and flipped around...but I loved every second of it. Here are a couple pictures from sledging:

I was the first one to jump in...don't mind the cheesy face I'm making!!

BEFORE

AFTER

Here's a group shot we took at the end. We were all trying to make serious faces but as you can see many of us, including myself, failed miserably!

After sledging, we got out of our wetsuits, dried off, and headed about 20 minutes across town to go zorbing. Zorbing is essentially rolling down a hill in a big plastic ball filled with water. If you think that sounds ridiculous, you're right! To get a better idea of what I'm talking about, here is a picture of the zorb:

This is my friend Arjun and me flying down a steep hill in a big plastic ball...who comes up with this stuff?!

And a little jump for joy after the ride!

After zorbing we were all getting pretty tired so the two groups went our separate ways and planned on meeting up again the next day in Waitomo to explore in the famous Waitomo caves. Waitomo was another pretty long drive from Auckland, but luckily we had made our reservation for 2pm, so we were able to get a decent amount of sleep that night. When we got to Waitomo we were driven about 20 minutes out to our assigned cave: Tumu Tumu. Our tour was titled, "tumu tumu toobing." This was because the cave we were exploring was filled with water, so for parts of the tour, we would have to sit in tubes and "black water raft" until we were able to walk again. This was definitely the most terrifying part of the trip for me because when we got in our tubes, the tour guides made us shut all of our head lights off and it became pitch black in the caves. Most of you know that I'm terrified of the dark and on top of it, the tour guides were making scary noises that echoed throughout the cave! The girls made fun of me because I'm always the one who wants to jump out of planes and do anything physically scary, but once I got into the dark caves I turned into the biggest wimp ever!! The only cool thing about turning our lights off was that we were able to see the glow worms that the caves in Waitomo are famous for. Other than that, I enjoyed the parts where we had our lights on and were walking through the caves much better!

We finished our cave tour around 7pm and met up with the other group to caravan back to Auckland. They had been driving in a camper van all week so we offered to have them stay in our hotel room for our last night in New Zealand. We all piled into our hotel at around 10pm and had a great last night in Auckland! Becca, Emily, Laura and I had to wake up at 5:15am the next morning to return our rental car and catch our 8am flight. We packed all our things, left the others sleeping in our hotel room (they later got kicked out by room service) and headed for the airport. When we got there we ran into Kate, another Northeastern girl who was flying home with us, and she informed us that our flight was delayed 10 hours!!!

Luckily the airline gave us a free hotel room to stay in while we waited, so after an exhausting rush to the airport that morning, we all just crashed in the airport hotel until lunch time. Then we got a free lunch and were finally taken back to the airport around 4pm. Our flight didn't end up leaving Auckland until about 7pm...almost 12 hours later than expected! Needless to say we arrived safely back in Sydney and now 2 days later, I'm still recovering from our crazy week in New Zealand!

I hope you enjoyed reading about all my adventures! I'm going to add pictures to my previous post so you can see Mt. Eden and Piha beach, so be sure to check that out as well! Miss you all!!

Love,

Lauren