Rotorua

This weekend I stayed on the North Island. Fifteen of us decided to go to the volcanic region of Rotorua that is about a six hour drive North of Wellington near the center of the island. We rented three cars and began driving on Thursday after lunch.We stayed at this awesome hostel in Rotorua. It's called Cactus Jack's, and has the theme of an old Mexican town. The fifteen of us were in two rooms with lots of bunk beds, but did not have to stay with anyone we didn't know which was nice. The hostel had a small Mexican village where we could hang out and a hot tub filled with hot springs water for us to relax in.
On Friday morning we all went zorbing. Zorbing is getting in a big plastic ball and rolling down a hill. It sounds pretty simple, but it is so much fun. The ball is about a foot thick so it is padded and before you get in they add a little water inside. Katie, Blake, and I all went in the zorb at the same time because it was cheaper that way and a lot more fun. After diving through the hole in the ball Superman style they zip you in and send you down the hill. There is no possibility of standing so you just slosh around in the water and tangle with your friends on the way down the hill. I hear there are plans to open up a zorb site in America, and if it ever happens you have to go!
After zorbing we went on the white water rafting trip we had booked for the afternoon. I have been rafting in America before, but this was a pretty unique experience. This stretch of river had a lot more waterfalls than rapids like I was used to. This is a picture of my raft going vertical on the largest raftable waterfall in the world (23 feet or so). At the bottom the raft becomes completely submerged; it's a pretty wild ride. After such a busy day we all headed back to Cactus Jack's and hot tubbed before going out to some local bars.
The next morning we drove to Waitomo about two hours away. The Waitomo region is full of over 300 complex caves. I went on this caving adventure that included three abseiling (rappelling) pitches on the way down, some crawling under holes at the bottom, and a little rock climbing on the way back up. Two of the abseils were through waterfalls like this one. Part of the fame of these caves comes from the glow worms that can be found on some of it's walls. When you turn out your headlamp you can see little green lights on the walls and ceiling.
Like I mentioned before, Rotorua is part of New Zealand's volcanic region. It's kind of like their own miniature Yellowstone. On Sunday morning before returning to Wellington we went to the Geothermal Wonderland to check out the sites. It is definitely small in comparison to Yellowstone and does not have good geysers, but it did have a few very cool sights. This is Katie and I in front of the devil's bath. I don't think the picture shows just how weird a color this water was. It almost looked like the nuclear waste you would see in a movie and was extremely bright.
This is another pool at the geothermal wonderland. It is known as the champagne pool, and it is just stunning. It goes from orange around the edges to green to blue, and has steam constantly coming off of it. I wish I could have got a better picture, but the wind kept blowing steam in the way of the brilliant colors.
On the drive back to Wellington my car stopped at one of the coolest playgrounds I have ever seen to take a break. It had an obstacle course, a zipline, a trampoline and all sorts of fun things to play on. This is me about to eat it on the hamster wheel. A few minutes after this I broke my toe while racing Blake through the obstacle course. It's all taped up and hopefully rapidly healing now, because Wellington is definitely a city that demands lots of walking. I'm back at the Weir house now, actually doing a little school work, sadly. This weekend we have a field trip to Taupo for geology as a class. It should be a cool place to visit, but I'm not sure the professors know how to structure a fun day like fifteen college kids do. Hopefully when I get back I'll have pictures of both Taupo and Wellington to post.

Abel Tasman National Park

Alright, I'm going to start using my blog again. Now that I am out of contact with everyone so much it is much more useful. If my internet stays cheap I hope it will mostly be pictures with explanations , but they charge by the Mb transferred here so no guarantees. Anyways this should be the first of many posts to keep you up to date on my journey to the other side of the world. This post is all about my first travel weekend when I went to Abel Tasman National Park. You can look for a post about Wellington, where I am living, later. I am also going on another trip this weekend so I should have more exciting pictures for you to look at in a few days if you like these. We only have class Monday to Thursday here so on Thursday afternoon fourteen of us left for a weekend at Abel Tasman. Abel Tasman is a beautiful coastal park at the North part of the South Island. Wellington is at the South end of the North Island so we took a ferry through this sound (Marlborough Sound) to get there.
Abel Tasman has enormous tide fluctuations that can go for over a mile. At low tide you see a lot of boats just sitting on the ground. It's pretty crazy how much farther you can walk during low tide.
This is a picture of the same place about two hours later. The tides can come in very fast; some friends and I almost had to swim in from a sand bar we walked out to, but luckily we noticed soon enough to run back to higher ground.
This is Doug and I in front of our Teepee. We stayed at this hostel just outside the park for about twelve US dollars, not too shabby. There was also a house with a bunch of bunk beds and an old camper that you could stay in; it was an interesting place. We had a lot of fun.
The first day in the park all of us went on a guided see kayak tour. It was beautiful and really fun to be just above the water zooming along the coast.
After several hours of rowing we were all ready for a hot tub. We actually got all fourteen of us in it. I think we displaced about half of the water in that tub before we got out.
The second day everyone went hiking. We split up in a few groups depending what we wanted to do. My group didn't want to waste money on a water taxi, but we wanted to go to a place fairly deep in the park. Everyone told us we wouldn't have time to get where we wanted and back in the twelve hours we had. We took that as a challenge and decide to do it anyways. We got up at five in the morning and hiked for half an hour in the dark to make it. It was totally worth it because we got to see the sun rise over the ocean from our path in the mountains.
We also got to see a lot more of the bays and lagoons than the people who went on shorter hikes. I have over a hundred pictures that are equally as stunning as this one.
This is about five hours into the hike I think. Somewhere between peanut butter and jelly sandwiches two and three, haha.
We hiked so fast that we made it even further than we planned, (Never doubt team hardcore!) and we had time to stop for a lot of good pictures . Mike, Doug, and I thought this rock was the perfect place for a sorority girl pose. I don't think Mallory thought we pulled it off very well. That's it for today; I should have more for you in a few days. Feel free to leave me some comments from America!