Kei Ora!
Greetings from Wellington, New Zealand.
Updating this blog in NZ has proven to be a bit challenging: cost and blogspot server accessibility being the two main issues. Cost: NZ isn't cheap, and that includes the internet. An internet cafe that charges $5 or $6 per hour is a bargin. Also, since NZ is about 17 hours ahead of the East Coast of the US, and the blogspot server is on Pacific Time, it is not uncommon that the server is not available when I am fortunate enough to find reasonably priced internet access.
Oh yeah, and sometimes the problem is me: I just don't feel like writing.
However, desire, cost and server access are all in alignment, so I'll fill you in on my exploits.
After Auckland I took a long distance bus to Rotorua. Rotorua is located about four hours south of Auckland, an the Eastern side of the island, about "an inch" (on my map) south of the Pacific Coast. Rotorua is famous for its boiling mud and hot springs, maori culture, and timber industry. And adrenelin junkies can get satiated here as well. There is zorbing, swooshing, sky diving (tadem and solo), white water rapids rafting and sledging, going over a waterfall in a rubber raft, and of course, bungy jumping.
I almost zorbed. It would have been cool to have told people that I zorbed in New Zealand. Apparently you can't zorb just any where in the world. But I just couldn't overcome the imagined feelings of nausea of rolling hiney over head down a hill (down a straight or zig-zag track) strapped inside a huge, plastic ball. Or, you can do it hamster style: they don't strap you in and you run (or flop) free in the plastic ball down the hill. Water is optional(??????). Nope, just couldn't bring myself to do it.
Swooshing was definitely out of the question. You sit in a pod with two or three other people. The lift you high up in the air, between two towers. Your pod is attached to the two towers. A crane pulls the pod back/out as far as it will go and then releases. You swing back and forth between the two towers at a bizillion mph. Yeah. No.
I seriously thought about tandem sky diving. Yes, I understand the incongruency: I am unwilling to free fall to earth only a few hundren feet with a rubber band around my ankles, but I AM willing to hurl toward the earth from several thousand feet with a parachute on my back. However, with tandem sky diving, I can blame it on my partner if the parachute doesn't work.
As for sledging, I'm not exactly sure what that is. I think it's white water rafting, but somehow they pull you faster through the water. This means I can avoid slamming into bolders at a faster rate.
No, being the couch potato that I am, I went for the soaking in hot mud and hot spring water at Hell's Gate. Hell's Gate is a thermal reserve that is filled with boiling mud and boiling mineral spring water. The water gets as hot as 148 degrees celsius. Boiling mud is so cool! It looks and sounds like boiling oat meal, without the lumps. Lots of steam and ploping sounds. Sulfur Oxide makes the air smell like rotton eggs. After marinating in warm mineral mud and water, my skin felt so wonderful.
Other activities in and around rotorua included a sheep and cow performance, a visit to another thermal reserve (this one had a geyser and kiwi birds), a recently recovered village that had been buried when a volcano exploded in 1880, and a Maori Hangi.
The Maori Hangi was interesting. A performance group enacted a first time meeting between Maori tribes (their tribe meets YOUR tribe), demonstrated aspects of Maori life in a small village setting, performed several Maori songs and dances, and then served a dinner that was roasted in the ground. The ritual meeting was amazing. I can only imagine the astonishment the European explorers must have felt having been greeted by growling, stomping, spear-waving, burley, tatooed, Maori warriors. Their eyes wide open, their tongues sticking out, and growling. And if you didn't respond the correct way, you started a fight, and could possibly end up as dinner. (yes, Maori were cannibals). But if you were Maori, then you knew to expect this sort of greeting, so unless you came looking to start a fight, you knew how to respond. Any way, it was all very intimidating and wonderful to watch.
I had some amazing food in Rotorua. Food in NZ has been really good, but also really expensive. There's a restaurant in Rotorua called the Fat Dog Cafe. The coffee is perfect. And they make pancakes with blueberries and whipped cream to die for. I had pancakes two days in a row! And the restaurant's ambiance is fun. Poetry on the walls and on the back of chairs. Lots of bright colors.
After Rotorua I went to Napier. There's not much to say about Napier. Napier suffered a horrific earthquake in 1931 which destroyed the city center. The city decided to rebuild the buildings in an art deco style. So many of the downtown buildings are attractive. There city is on Pacific Coast, but the surf and undertown are too strong for swimming. The beach is black pebbles, not sand.
The area is also known for its vineyards. Did a wine tour one day. Had some good wines. Red are not that great in New Zealand. They tend to be thin in body. The best reds I tasted were syrahs, which tend to be less full bodied, anyway. The chardonnay's were excellent, very buttery. NZ is known for sauvignon blanc. This is not a wine I drink, so I will learn about this type as I travel through the country.
Now I'm in Wellington. Arrived last night. In a few minutes I will join a tour that will explore the greater metropolitan Wellington area. The only thingsI can report right now are: The city has lots of hills, and the building in the area where I am are pretty. Oh, and my bed has fleas.
Will tell you more later.
cheers,
Stacey
No comments:
Post a Comment