about 2 k ft from the ground, I could see Tony waving and trying to get a picture, if that moment could be bottled... it was then that I started to wonder how we were supposed to land...details, details..these guys were so professional, I only needed to lift up my knees and they were able to land easily in a couple of steps it was over and I couldn't do anything but jump up and down and just to release all the adrenaline inside of me! It is the craziest thing I ever did, a year ago, the thought would never have crossed my mind but then again, this trip and meeting Marijke and Pete in Costa Rica changed the story of my life as well as Tony's forever. To live and really do what you want is a luxury that we all work hard for. It is worth every 10 hour day and every penny saved to be allowed the freedom of this year to take a break from the real world. I can only hope now that the two worlds do not have to be separate, that there is a way to combine the two together.
12/6 Waitomo (1 1/2 hours north of Lake Taupo)
Ah, finally the glow worms...we read about it, heard about it and are excited about our big day. We will be abseiling down a 27 mtr rock wall into the caves where we will sport little rubber innertubes and go black water rafting through the caves and rock climb back out. We are with 2 other couples from England and at 9am, we hop into a truck full of cobwebs and reminescent of Indiana Jones, it's a man's truck as Tony puts it, the ride is enough to make most of us car sick and for those that weren't sick already, the smell of the gear that we have to put on did it. The wetsuits were amply wet and the overpants and socks were of equal wetness and dirtiness, we then top off the whole ensembe with white rubber boots, which later prove to be quite a pain in the butt, literally. Our first stop is a big grassy area, the air smells of sheep poo and it's everywhere...I am thinking sheep are not very smart. The cave is hidden are before long, we see the crack that we are supposed to abseil down. I am first to go and found the drop down fascinating, all around me was rock and here I am suspended by one rope using a contraption that makes my left thumb the brake that stops me from falling to my death. At the bottom, we wait for one another and when the whole group is together, we grab our rubber tubes and start trekking upstream...upstream? yep, little detail that we didn't know about, in order to float downstream, we had to get to the starting point by walking upsteam, in waist high water with heavy rubber boots full of water...fun, eh? nevermind, we get to our starting point and we get to our starting point and it is COOL..our guide shoots off a flare gun and the whole cave lights up with little twinkling lights. we hop onto our little tubes and float down the caves in complete darkness aside from the glow worms, the next 30 minutes are spent rafting in the dark, avoiding jutting limestone that seem to always jab you in the back and being tossed off our tubes by our guide. Wet, exhausted and tickled, we make our way back to the mouth that we started from and face the 90 degree angle rock wall that we are supposed to climb. Starved, we had an incentive to get up quickly, in honour of our climb master, Siam in Thailand, Tony and I did him proud, I have to say, we were up in no time flat, showboating to the others :) On our way back, we had an added bonus of meeting up with Jennifer and Dennis at the airport before their flight out to Cook Islands, they are friends from home who are also travelling around the world (I worked with Jennifer at Esprit, we must have just sat too close to each other to have such similiar thoughts!)
12/7 Auckland- Pete's Place
The last two days completed our trip to NZ, we are now safely back in Auckland getting ready for our flight out on Tuesday, before leaving of couse, we will have a forgotten weekend of boozing it up with Pete and Co. Tomorrow will be spent at the races and we'll be kicking off the festivities tonight. So far, NZ is my favorite country.