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  Rotorua and Waitomo, New Zealand
Friday, December 16, 2005

MG: We're sorry that we've been a little delinquent in the posting. It's been very hectic with traveling from the north of the north island to the north of the south island in 5 days. We posted some pictures to the last entry, but it is not necessarily easy to find places from where we can post photos. Plus it takes FOREVER. Anyway, please be patient. We appreciate all of your responses and will try to e-mail back. It means a lot to us to hear from our loved ones at home.

We left the Bay of Islands on Monday morning and headed straight down to Rotorua, which is a very stinky little city (Jessie's words). I'm not nearly as good at the driving on the left as Jessie is, but we managed to make it there nonetheless. When we first got into town, we found this great little backpacker (hostel) to stay in. We couldn't believe how much they recycle - basically, everything, even styrofoam

Exploring the Caves in Waitomo

. At the suggestion from several people we met along the way and for general curiosity, we decided to try zorbing. We actually didn't really have a good idea of what it was, but zorbing is a very cool word and we're trying to do the things that we wouldn't normally do.

JG: I am now going to fill you in on the zorbing because, well it was HILARIOUS! So basically zorbing is getting inside a big blown up ball and getting rolled down a hill. That is the very basic...in more detail it is a big ball with water and people in it suspended inside an even bigger ball. You have to dive into the balls through a very small opening (you can go alone or with others), they zip up the opening and then push you off down the hill...then you just start sloshing around inside the ball. It is like being inside a washing machine (or so I can imagine) or going down a crazy waterslide. Anyway, I found it unbelievably hysterical...Missy was a little more tight-lipped, squeezing my hand the whole way down (MG: True. But in all fairness, we were rolling backward down a hill! I mean, it's sort of a prolonged feeling of free fall and you have no idea which way is up or forward or anything. Plus, there's the sloshing.). When we got to the bottom they told us they thought someone had been crying - they could hear me laughing pretty much the whole way down! So that my friends is Zorbing...we highly recommend trying it as soon as it makes it to the US or you are in NZ.

After that fun and very wet experience (let me add that we also got rained on, so we were extra wet)...we went to a Maori cultural experience. For those of you who have been to Plymouth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg or anything like that you might understand this, but maybe not...it was a very strange experience, in which we felt pretty out of place in a very very touristy environment

Rotorua's Smelly Thermal Pools

. Don't get me wrong it was really interesting to learn about Maori culture outside of a museum, but to watch a performance of ritual activity was kind of bizarre...plus there was this whole thing with someone from the audience being a "chief" of all of the audience (and of course it was a white, male American)--which honestly was just kind of "cringe-inducing" (the words of another traveler from the UK, which we agreed with wholeheartedly). The dances and chants and singing were cool, though, and so were the paintings on their bodies (especially the swirls painted on their tushies). But at the end there was a 'hangi,' a huge feast cooked in a pit in the ground (yes, just like a clambake). It was delicious. The best part was the kumara (sweet potato of NZ), which we both loved (is that better, Dad?).

MG: The next morning we moved on to Waitomo. Waitomo is famous for underground caves that can be navigated by tubing, caving (which we are pretty sure is spelunking), climbing and swimming. The amazing thing about the caves is that they are populated by gloworms - insects who, in their larva phase, glow to attract food. We took a trip that involved spelunking, swimming and tubing. Climbing in and out of the little crevasses, sliding around in the muck of the caves and overall being 7 years old was a blast (good thing we like playing in the mud). I always thought I would be afraid of being in a cave like that, but it was really tremendous amounts of fun

Zorbing!

. Plus, when we got on the tubes and started floating through the caves, the ceilings and walls were covered with gloworms. It was like the planetarium, only in the freezing cold water in a cave. Definitely something I would never have predicted us doing, but also something that I can't quite find the words to explain just how cool it is.

One of the best things about traveling has been meeting other travelers. On the cave trip, we met a couple from the UK. They were absolutely hilarious. By the end of the trip, he was even making fun of me for being short. Meeting people from everywhere and learning about what it means to live in other places is part of the reason we wanted to do this in the first place. Anyway, time is running out here. We're off for a 3-day kayak. We'll try to post pictures when we get back to civilization. And on we gleckel...

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