The Luge Grand Prix was a fix!

Trip Start Aug 16, 2007

Trip End Jul 16, 2008

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Flag of New Zealand Rotorua, New Zealand
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

There was a lot to do in Rotorua (it's abit like the Queenstown of the North Island) so we decided to spend a few days here with our new found travelling buddies who at this point we had now formed a convoy of 3 cars/vans with. First up was the much anticpated Luge Grand Prix which, as in Queenstown, a go cart track down the side of a hill which you have to a cable car to. It's kind of like Super Mario cars and it's a really good laugh. I would like to add that going into the race both me and the Vikster were handicapped as we only had one go in Queenstown but the other 4 went on it LOADS! Due to this reason and only this reason we were lagging in the table after the first 2 of 5 races and struggled to redeem ourselves, although we did put up a strong challenge late on. Much to our dismay, following on from cheating drivers (Marc), crashes (Paul) and people taking short cuts (Russell), we came 5th and 6th out of 6! I even got beaten by a girl (Not Vikki). It's was good though despite Russell and Mark almost coming to blows in the final race.

From here we also booked on a Caving day out in Waitomo, about 2 hours drive west of Rotorua where we still kept base and just drove out for the day. It was quite an activity packed trip. We got donned in some terrible outfits and then first abseiled in a hole in the ground which went down 50 meters in the cave. We then did a zip wire in the dark (Vikki went first, the hero!) before stopping for a flap jack and a brew.

We then got given these rubber rings and got told to jump off this ledge into a river running below (about a 7 meter jump down). The trick was to land on your arse in the ring coz the water was only waist deep and potentially was gonna nail you hat on if you did it wrong. Up steps the fat man! Not by choice I might add but because I was first in line for a flap jack so just happened to be first to do this as well. Needless to say I took one for the team and went for it and it was fooking freezing! I managed to land in the ring though unlike someone we all know! Up steps Vikki, last in line with the 7 people waiting in the freezing water for her to jump and jump she did. She managed to land it quite well and looked steady for a second before doing the strangest looking 'wibble' I have ever seen and coming right out of her rubber ring in front of the group. It was hilarious! Shame we couldn't have filmed it. We then moved on and spent the best part of 4 hours looking at glow worms, climbing waterfalls, jumping off waterfalls, rafting in the rings down the river and squeezing through small gaps in rocks. It was a good day topped off with fish and chips at an English Chippy that served gravy and mushy peas (the first place we've found that does).

We wanted to do something cultural while we were here and learn a bit about Maoris so we did a Maori night. We ate traditional food cooked in the ground, watched a tribe, albeit a pretend one, do the hakka and dance and sing for us and we had a tour to be shown how they would have lived and what local traditions they would have partaken in when they were still living like that. It was good to to see that they seem to have embraced westernisation and accepted it's place here and so they just roll with it. It's much different to how the Aboriginals have done it in Australia.

There was some street sleeping here which was good (waking up next to lakes etc) and I whipped up a corned beef stew for the convoy. It's also a thermal area so it stinks but there's steam coming out of the ground everywhere and the mud literally bubbles in places.

A good effort!