New Zealand Index

Auckland
Northland
Heading South
Wellington
Traveling again
West Coast
Picking Apples
Road to Qtown
Kinloch
Southland
Queenstown
Heading North
Queen Charlette Wilderness Park
to Taranaki
Central Plateau
The End

From Auckland to Roturua

So I say goodbye to my traveling companions, and head south. I still don’t know where I’m headed, I just want to get out of Auckland. After a while I stop for lunch, and figure out where to go. I had just passed the direct route to the Coromandel, so I decided to go to Rotorua. I get there in late afternoon, check into a hostel and walk around the town a little. Now I have to figure out which of the crazy sports to do. This is the adventure capital of the North Island. I decide on Sledge. For those of you who don’t know what sledging is; it’s going down a river, face first on a little piece of fiberglass with handles. Defiantly one of the biggest rushes ever. I don’t have pictures, but goto www.sledge-it.com and see what is is. Once I figured this out, I went back to the hostel to go into the thermals pools there. The hostel had three pool. One outside, kind of a heated swimming pool, and two smaller inside, that were so hot, I could not get in. That night I just met up with some random people at the bar, and hung out for the evening.

The next day, I was just pumped to go sledging. Noon couldn’t come fast enough. Finally, it was time to go. A van came by my hostel to pick me up. And then we picked up some more people, and we were off. First we went to pick up the equipment, and get suited up. We put on wetsuits flippers, masks, kind of like hockey masks, and life jackets. Then into the van, and out to the river. We trained for about 20-30 min on shore first, and then jumped in, and did small training maneuvers in the beginning of the river. Then we had our first rapids. This was only class 2, just something to get used to. Then into the real shit. Then next thing was a 250 meter stretch of class 3 and 4. WOW!! But this is where I hit my leg. I got a little out of line, and went over a rock, with my thigh. It smarted a little, but I was fine. We had a couple crazy sections, and then the main attraction. I 1K long stretch that had class 3+, 4, and 5. The class five at the end was 3 waves, 4 meters high then a water shout that speeded us down strait into even bigger wave. This was really crazy. There really is no way of describing what it was like. Well, now we just had another K or two of smooth water. Then we were out. What an amazing trip. Then we went back to shower and change. We had some food, and looked at pictures of the trip. I got back to the hostel about 6ish. Roughly 2 hours after getting out of the water, my leg was starting to hurt. Somehow I managed to make it up three flights of stairs, and into my room. I just wanted to lie down. Shit my leg hurt. There was this Irish guy I had met the day before staying in my room, and he ad gone rafting that day. He was about to go to the Polynesian Spa, one of the top spas in the world apparently. So we went down. My leg felt a little better for walking on it, and using the muscle, but I was looking forward to the hot water. Once we got in, there were four pools. The main one at 38 degrees (Celsius), and then smaller one at 39, 41, and 42. after a little time in the big pool, it was over to the small pools, and real hot water. Aaahhhh! It was so nice, and I got to look out over a lake at sunset. My leg felt so much better. After a little over two hours, back to the hostel, down to the bar for a few minutes, and then an early bed.

The next morning, my let hurt. Well, I can get though this, no biggie. I was leaving Rotorua today, and I had one thing left to do here, Zorbing. This was so cool. I got into a giant plastic ball, they put some water in the bottom, and then down the hill I went. They had a cool winding track set up too, so you had no idea where you were. This was cool, but it only lasted about a minute.