It never rains in California...

  Taupo, New Zealand
Monday, October 15, 2007

...but it sure seemed to never stop in New Zealand. I know that's why it's green (yadda yadda yadda) but we were getting a wee bit tired of hearing from people that the freakish winds and crazy rains weren't standard at this time of year.

Anyway, as Marge and I are glass-is-half-full type of people (even though with the rain we were getting the glass was in danger of refilling and overflowing of it's own accord) we decided to head towards Taupo and use it as the jump off point for the Tongariro Crossing and to try our hand at a wee bit of sky-diving while we were there. Apparently, neither of these pursuits are recommended when the winds are blowing at up to 120km/h (something about taking off in NZ and landing in Fiji that voids our travel insurance policy I think), and after a walk to the Huka Falls, we took of westwards again towards the one extreme activity you can do regardless of the weather in New Zealand - black water rafting through the Waitomo cave system.

We had signed up for an all-in package with a company called Rap, Raft and Rock which promised to introduce us to the joys of RAPelling into a 35metre chasm, RAFTing down the underground rivers on an inner tube, and ROCKclimbing our way back out of the caves. Oh, and having a glimpse at some fantastic glow worms along the way.

We arrived in the morning, and were picked up and driven off into the middle of the country where we got changed into quite the most fetching outfits that have ever seen the light of day (or dark of cave). A full body wetsuit teamed with a pair of purple trewsers...can I get an oh yeah. And topping it off with a white helmet and white wellies was an inspired touch. Once decked out, we all wanted to get underground as quickly as possible to hide our shame from the rest of the world and after a quick introduction to the ins and outs of abseiling, we dangled down into the caves and got ourselves ready for the walk through the underground rivers towards the glow worm caverns.

The more lateral minded amongst you will have thought that record breaking rains and underground rivers do not a happy pair usually make, and you'd be right. Where at other times the river trickled, today it roared, and while the 'bigger boned' of us (ie me) didn't have too much trouble walking thigh deep through the rivers, the more petite members of the group (ie Marge) struggled to stay on their feet and on more than one occasion, were saved from almost certain death by the heroically overfed (ie me again). With our headtorches on, we pushed against the flow of the river for 30 minutes, stopping occasionally to scramble through small tunnels or clamber over rockfalls until finally our guide called a halt. We sat down on a 'beach' to the side of the river and as instructed, all switched off our head torches.

And as our eyes grew accustomed to the dark, we started to see more and more glints of light from the behinds of the glow worms hanging from the roof of the caves. Pretty soon, it looked for all the world as though we were sitting under a perfectly clear night sky with millions of stars twinkling away for our enjoyment. It was strangely serene lying back on the gravel beach looking up at all these specks of light with the sound of the river booming through the tunnels.

Relaxation time over, we jumped back into the river with an inflated inner tube, jumped in and let the river carry us off down through the caves. It was one thing doing this with the headlight switched on, but a whole other thing in the pitch darkness with only the occasional glow worm to light your way. Verrrry weird indeed.

Once all these antics drew to an end and we'd scrambled back up into the daylight, Marge and I took off on what has become known as 'Search for a Pighunter' through the south western part of NZ's north island. It seemed perfectly logical to me to drive around for a few days in the back of Deliverance country in the hope of biding our time until the wind and rain stopped and we could take on the Tongariro Crossing.

At this juncture, I would like to introduce my civilised Irish readers (and my semi-civilised English ones) to the uniquely strange 'Pighunter Monthly' magazine. While browsing the racks of a friendly local newsagents, I stumbled across this gruesome monthly magazine dedicated to the joys of pighunting. It's filled with great articles reviewing different dog breeds as pig hunting partners, stories of 8-year olds 'first hunts' and crammed with pictures of grown men carrying dead pigs on their backs.

001 - pighunter

And so safe in the knowledge that we were most definitely in a part of NZ that lists banjo playing and sister kissing amongst it's top 5 activities, we found ourselves driving down an 80km stretch of unsealed road (ie gravel track) known to the NZ tourist board as the 'Forgotten Highway'. I'm sure it's picturesque when the sun is out, but with the rain and wind beating our van from side to side, to say we were a little tense would be an understatement.

I drove along, whistling cheerfully (and falsely) while Marge sat poker straight and white faced beside me. We rounded one corner to see the first vehicle we'd come across in almost 15km hurtling towards us. A quad bike, driven by a strange man with one of those ear flappy hats (perfect for pighunting was my first thought), pulled an open trailer with three large barking dogs in it. Sinead gave me one of those 'this was YOUR bright idea looks' and I continued to whistle irritatingly away, driving at 40km/h dodging potholes and graveltraps.

We rounded another corner to see maybe 20 goatskins draped over a barbed wire fence - in the middle of nowhere I might add - and my whistling stopped. Grim faced, I gave up trying to pretend I could offer any comfort to Marge, but when we hit a particularly bad pothole and scraped the bottom of the van, her fear went into overdrive.

Suddenly Marge burst into tears, and when I pulled over to try to calm her down, she told me that she was terrified that some weirdos would force our van to stop, kill me and spirit her away a la 'The Vanishing'. Then she dropped the real bombshell.

'You know' she sobbed, 'if something happened me....I don't think....well, I don't think that I could never forgive you'.

Great. In the middle of nowhere, with 40km of gravelly nowhere stretching ahead of us, and I now realise that if in the unlikely event that I am killed by a pighunter and Marge is kidnapped, it will be all my fault.

Oh the joys of the open road.