One of the more popular activities on the north island is called black water rafting. It's quite simple really. There are these caves in Waitomo with water running through them, so they plop you in an inner tube and float you through them and thus black water rafting was created.
There are 2 different trips you can do, one that only does the rafting bit, the other is bit longer and more adventurous. I choose the latter. It starts off with a 120 foot abseil down a tomo (tunnel) to get into the cave. The abseil (the way you go down a vertical wall attached to a rope) was through an extremely narrow opening that opened up after the first 30 feet of squeezing your way through. Once we all got down into the pitch black cave we turned our headlamps on and started off on our neck adventure, a long zip-line dropping further into the cave.
Side note. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but one of the reasons that the caves of Waitomo are famous are for the glowworms that are there. Glowworms are worms whose butt glows to attract flies that they then eat. They glow a neon blue/green color and the first ones I saw in Franz Josef weren't that impressive, in fact I thought they were stupid. This trip changed my mind.
You were attached to the zip-line and swung out over the cave opening, how deep? who knows. The guide shuts off his lamp, the only one so that you are now in the pitch black and releases you. You accelerate around a corner in the cave into a rather large opening and the ceiling is littered with thousands of glowworms. It is almost like you are zipping through a neon light show because there are so many. By the time you feel like you might be getting out of control you hit the end of the line thus finishing your zip-line. After the all the tough work it was time for tea and biscuits atop a ledge about 20 feet above some water below.
Once the guide thought the tea and cookies were done he took the lead and much to our surprised jumped off the ledge with a inner tube around him and smacked down in the river below. We really weren't sure how deep or cold it was at this point but we were soon instructed to follow. You had to jump so that the inner tube went around your butt and you landed on the water flat and made a heck of a loud noise with the inner tube smacking the water. About half the group flipped out of their tube upon landing which was hilarious, but even funnier was everyones reaction to the ice cold water. A chilly 55 degrees (we did have wet suits though).
From there you head upstream first by pulling yourself along a rope. Once at the end the guide tells you all about the glowworms but now its time to see them, apparently the thousand or so above the zip-line weren't enough. So we latched together and headed back down the river as a long chain, this time with our lights off and we were given the most beautiful "nights" sky that I had ever seen. There were glowworms everywhere that lit up the ceiling of the cave perfectly. I was expecting to see shooting stars or something like that but the guides were just playing games and messing with us the entire time as we enjoyed the amazing views.
We kept going passed the ledge we jumped off at and started bobbing through some small rapids, at the end of which we ditched the tubes and started walking a bit further down the cave. The currents picked up at one point and instead of walking we all started floating down (wet suits are very buoyant). Glow worms above, mysterious cave walls popping out all the time, and freezing cold water below made for an amazing journey.
Then we got to the really adventurous part. We turned off from the main pathway to a small side tunnel that kept getting smaller and smaller. At times the water was so high that the cave ceiling was literally 3 inches from the water surface and you had to be pushed through lying on your back. For a solid 15 minutes you were neck deep in water with the cave wall sitting right on your head. If you were scared of small spaces you would have been terrified through these sections. I kept thinking it would take much for this to flood and us to drown but I had faith in the guides. The river below was much rougher than before and the current was extremely strong. We continued to follow through these miniature caves and came to a series of 3 waterfalls. You could only see one at a time. The waterfalls were rough. They weren't too high, but the amount of water running over their crests was impressive and we were climbing up them. It was extremely tough going battling the currents coming down but once we were down we had climbed out of the cave and the journey was over. As we found out later, all of the rain they have been having in the last week has raised water levels to the highest that the company will run tours at, and they weren't suppose to go up the waterfalls because the flows were too strong. Fortunately the guides didn't follow all the rules and let us do it anyway.
This was hands down the best activity I have down in New Zealand, simply out of this world.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The smell of rotten eggs
From Taupo it was a quick hour long trip to Rotorua, the geo-thermal and cultural center of NZ...and finally found what I was looking for. Looking back on it, Rotorua has been one of, if not my favorite, stop in NZ. It was amazing and I had an amazing time there.
The town sits directly on top of the "Ring of Fire" (the volcanic circle that goes completely around the pacific....including the California faults, the Andes in South America, etc.) and is very active thermally. If you know anything about hot springs, etc. you know that they are heated from the center of the earth, more specifically by hydrogen sulphide. Unfortunately sulfur smells like rotten eggs. So every now and then you walk around town and get an awful wiff of air, but you also walk around town and can see the ground literally steaming in certain places.
I spent my first day there walking around the town thermal park to look at these bubbling pools and steaming grounds. It was cool but was nothing compared to what was to come at Wai O Tapu, the "Thermal Wonderland". It's about 20km out of town and one of the largest thermally active areas in the country. It is filled with craters, geysers, and sinters (flat grounds next to craters/geysers/etc.) formed from minerals/elements deep within the earth, meaning they are brightly colored from what we typically see. One of the overlooks there is called the "Artists Palette" because it is a myriad of colors ranging from white, red, blue, green and all shades in between. The first stop there was to the Lady Know Geyser to watch its eruption. It was kind of lame because it is set off by a person (it would be unsafe otherwise) but it shot steaming water about 20 feet into the air...hooray!! From there we went to the boiling mud pools, which were awesome. Mud that is bubbling might not sound too appealing but the sound it makes (like a witches cauldron) and the shapes that the mud takes after it "pops" were amazing to see. You then follow a 2 mile walk way around the park to various colorful sites to and of course smells.
Highlights were the Champagne Pool and Devil's Basin. The Champagne blue is brilliantly bright blue pool with reddish sides (the color of bright rust). The pool is constantly steaming because it is about 180 degrees on the surface. The pool goes extremely deep into the ground, hence the reason for its heat. The shades of color there are breathtaking, and the overflow from the pool create most of the park, including the silica sinters that get covered in bright green moss. The Devil's Basin looked more like kool-aid than actual water. It is a former crater filled with neon green water....it was seriously out of this world and didn't smell too bad which was great.
After Wai O Tapu I went to the "world's newest thermal" area, Waimangu which was formed from an eruption in 1886. The park was filled with many craters, which frankly looked like deep valleys in the forest, and the largest hot spring in the world, which of course was steaming and bubbling everywhere. Most of it was not as visually impressive as Wai O Tapu except for the Inferno Crater, the highlight of the park. Like the Devil's Basin it too was a brilliant shade of color, except this time it was bright blue with white side walls. It was almost a carolina blue color in shade and was definitely the bluest water I had ever seen. I wanted to take a dip, but I'd rather not be boiled, the pool average temperature is between 120-180 degrees.
These thermal areas were far different than what I expected and anything that I'd seen so far which made them all the better for me to visit.
And I still had the Black Water Rafting to look forward to.
The town sits directly on top of the "Ring of Fire" (the volcanic circle that goes completely around the pacific....including the California faults, the Andes in South America, etc.) and is very active thermally. If you know anything about hot springs, etc. you know that they are heated from the center of the earth, more specifically by hydrogen sulphide. Unfortunately sulfur smells like rotten eggs. So every now and then you walk around town and get an awful wiff of air, but you also walk around town and can see the ground literally steaming in certain places.
I spent my first day there walking around the town thermal park to look at these bubbling pools and steaming grounds. It was cool but was nothing compared to what was to come at Wai O Tapu, the "Thermal Wonderland". It's about 20km out of town and one of the largest thermally active areas in the country. It is filled with craters, geysers, and sinters (flat grounds next to craters/geysers/etc.) formed from minerals/elements deep within the earth, meaning they are brightly colored from what we typically see. One of the overlooks there is called the "Artists Palette" because it is a myriad of colors ranging from white, red, blue, green and all shades in between. The first stop there was to the Lady Know Geyser to watch its eruption. It was kind of lame because it is set off by a person (it would be unsafe otherwise) but it shot steaming water about 20 feet into the air...hooray!! From there we went to the boiling mud pools, which were awesome. Mud that is bubbling might not sound too appealing but the sound it makes (like a witches cauldron) and the shapes that the mud takes after it "pops" were amazing to see. You then follow a 2 mile walk way around the park to various colorful sites to and of course smells.
Highlights were the Champagne Pool and Devil's Basin. The Champagne blue is brilliantly bright blue pool with reddish sides (the color of bright rust). The pool is constantly steaming because it is about 180 degrees on the surface. The pool goes extremely deep into the ground, hence the reason for its heat. The shades of color there are breathtaking, and the overflow from the pool create most of the park, including the silica sinters that get covered in bright green moss. The Devil's Basin looked more like kool-aid than actual water. It is a former crater filled with neon green water....it was seriously out of this world and didn't smell too bad which was great.
After Wai O Tapu I went to the "world's newest thermal" area, Waimangu which was formed from an eruption in 1886. The park was filled with many craters, which frankly looked like deep valleys in the forest, and the largest hot spring in the world, which of course was steaming and bubbling everywhere. Most of it was not as visually impressive as Wai O Tapu except for the Inferno Crater, the highlight of the park. Like the Devil's Basin it too was a brilliant shade of color, except this time it was bright blue with white side walls. It was almost a carolina blue color in shade and was definitely the bluest water I had ever seen. I wanted to take a dip, but I'd rather not be boiled, the pool average temperature is between 120-180 degrees.
These thermal areas were far different than what I expected and anything that I'd seen so far which made them all the better for me to visit.
And I still had the Black Water Rafting to look forward to.
The North Island....aka the wet island
Unfortunately all good things come to an end as did my time on the south island of NZ. It is widely regarded to be the more beautiful of the 2 islands in NZ but there were some things on the North Island that I've been looking forward to for quite some time so it was about that time to head up there.
One thing I was not looking for was rain and bad weather, I think the karma Buddha gave me in Thailand may have come to an end because it rained for the first 8 days I was on the North Island. NZ is somewhat famous for its rain, particularly the west coast of the South Island, but I miraculously escaped from all of that. After comparing stories with fellow travelers it turns out that I luckily had pretty much the best weather possible in pretty much every location while in the South. I guess it rained a bit in Wanaka, but if that is all that I can say that I am extremely lucky since I had virtually perfect weather everywhere else.
Anyway, after crossing the sound between the islands that all changed. Wellington, NZ's capital, was covered in rain. The city itself was quite pleasant though as most of the things I wanted to see were indoors. Like a doctor, apparently I got an ear and sinus infection in Queenstown (all better now) and the National Museum. Which was not only free, but cool of interesting exhibits to occupy my nerdy self for nearly an entire day. I also got to stroll around the government buildings, one of which is shaped like a giant beehive......if only our presidents lived in a beehive. Do to the weather, and me being a bit under the weather I spent a lot of time reading and sleeping in Wellington.
From there is was north to Taupo, which I had heard great things about, but was by far the biggest disappointment I've had in NZ. It was evident that the beauty that is everywhere on the South island was no gone but I was hoping for a bit more. Taupo was suppose to provide that with lakes and mountains but they were less than spectacular at first sight. There is a much more residential feel on the north island than on the south which has been good to see to a certain extent, and there has certainly been a much more diverse atmosphere with Maori people scattered all over as well but Taupo was missing something. Fun. Well, to be fair, it is there if the weather cooperates. The Tongariro Crossing, something I've been wanting to do for months now, was closed due to strong winds and blizzards, the sky diving (cheapest place in NZ) was also canceled for 3 straight days due to high winds. All that there was to do was see the Huka Falls...pretty cool water fall...or walk/run around the lake there, which is the largest in NZ. It was pretty I guess, but I was expecting more after the south island.
At least the kumara are still incredible, I'm trying to devise a plan to bring them home since they are like 12,000 times better than regular potatoes.
One thing I was not looking for was rain and bad weather, I think the karma Buddha gave me in Thailand may have come to an end because it rained for the first 8 days I was on the North Island. NZ is somewhat famous for its rain, particularly the west coast of the South Island, but I miraculously escaped from all of that. After comparing stories with fellow travelers it turns out that I luckily had pretty much the best weather possible in pretty much every location while in the South. I guess it rained a bit in Wanaka, but if that is all that I can say that I am extremely lucky since I had virtually perfect weather everywhere else.
Anyway, after crossing the sound between the islands that all changed. Wellington, NZ's capital, was covered in rain. The city itself was quite pleasant though as most of the things I wanted to see were indoors. Like a doctor, apparently I got an ear and sinus infection in Queenstown (all better now) and the National Museum. Which was not only free, but cool of interesting exhibits to occupy my nerdy self for nearly an entire day. I also got to stroll around the government buildings, one of which is shaped like a giant beehive......if only our presidents lived in a beehive. Do to the weather, and me being a bit under the weather I spent a lot of time reading and sleeping in Wellington.
From there is was north to Taupo, which I had heard great things about, but was by far the biggest disappointment I've had in NZ. It was evident that the beauty that is everywhere on the South island was no gone but I was hoping for a bit more. Taupo was suppose to provide that with lakes and mountains but they were less than spectacular at first sight. There is a much more residential feel on the north island than on the south which has been good to see to a certain extent, and there has certainly been a much more diverse atmosphere with Maori people scattered all over as well but Taupo was missing something. Fun. Well, to be fair, it is there if the weather cooperates. The Tongariro Crossing, something I've been wanting to do for months now, was closed due to strong winds and blizzards, the sky diving (cheapest place in NZ) was also canceled for 3 straight days due to high winds. All that there was to do was see the Huka Falls...pretty cool water fall...or walk/run around the lake there, which is the largest in NZ. It was pretty I guess, but I was expecting more after the south island.
At least the kumara are still incredible, I'm trying to devise a plan to bring them home since they are like 12,000 times better than regular potatoes.
Ka mate! Ka mate!
Actually....ka ora ka ora, but that isn't how the All Blacks haka goes. From party town NZ I headed back to the place I started here, Christchurch. It was somewhat sad leaving Queenstown and the beauty of the southern Alps behind, I made sure to get up early to watch the sunrise over the Remarkable mountain range one more time, to head back to the "city" of Christchurch. It's really not a city, NZ doesn't really have real cities.
I was hoping to stop at Mt Cook on the way up to Christchurch but much of the village at the mountain is closed down from winter conditions so instead I headed straight through so that I could catch the All Blacks game. For those that don't know, the All Blacks are New Zealand's international rugby team and are usually ranked as the best team in the world. Rugby isn't necessarily watched all that much back at home, and it took a few games before I even started to get the general gist of things, but it, particularly the All Blacks, is as closely watched here as the NFL is back in the States.
The All Blacks were playing England who is on their summer tour....to the winter season in NZ. They had played the previous weeks and it didn't go well for England, I was hoping for more of the same because I was going to the game with a bus full of Brits whom I wanted to laugh because they find it fun to make fun of the States. Really in all of my travels they have been the only nationality to make ignorant comments about other countries, besides them just about everyone I have met has been super friendly and accepting. Thats not to say all of them are bad, in fact some have been my favorite people I have met, but they have tended to be the most ignorant at times. So that, in addition to poking fun at some of the British friends along the way, and the fact that I was in NZ made me support the All Blacks by painting my face black and wearing....all black.
The game was pretty much over when it started. New Zealand ended up winning 44-12 despite pulling 2 of their best players due to injuries in the first half. The real highlight of the game ended up happening before the game started. The New Zealand Maori, similar to the Native Americans back at home, have a war cry that they chant when welcoming guests, before fighting, etc. This was primarily used back in the day. It is in the Maori language so I don't really understand it and is coupled with the men of the tribe (or rugby team) slapping their arms, chests, and legs while their eyes bulge and with their tongues sticking out. As I later found out it is meant to intimidate and psyche the tribe/team up for big events.
This war cry is called the haka and was made famous by the All Blacks, because after the national anthems of the 2 teams are played, the team performs the haka in front of the other team. Needless to say its intimidating as hell. Rugby players are huge and are rather fearsome to begin with, to see them yelling and batting their chests with eyes bulging and tongues out was really really impressive.
Here is a youtube video of what it looks like....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zvs4T4RU30
Pretty awesome if you ask me.
I was hoping to stop at Mt Cook on the way up to Christchurch but much of the village at the mountain is closed down from winter conditions so instead I headed straight through so that I could catch the All Blacks game. For those that don't know, the All Blacks are New Zealand's international rugby team and are usually ranked as the best team in the world. Rugby isn't necessarily watched all that much back at home, and it took a few games before I even started to get the general gist of things, but it, particularly the All Blacks, is as closely watched here as the NFL is back in the States.
The All Blacks were playing England who is on their summer tour....to the winter season in NZ. They had played the previous weeks and it didn't go well for England, I was hoping for more of the same because I was going to the game with a bus full of Brits whom I wanted to laugh because they find it fun to make fun of the States. Really in all of my travels they have been the only nationality to make ignorant comments about other countries, besides them just about everyone I have met has been super friendly and accepting. Thats not to say all of them are bad, in fact some have been my favorite people I have met, but they have tended to be the most ignorant at times. So that, in addition to poking fun at some of the British friends along the way, and the fact that I was in NZ made me support the All Blacks by painting my face black and wearing....all black.
The game was pretty much over when it started. New Zealand ended up winning 44-12 despite pulling 2 of their best players due to injuries in the first half. The real highlight of the game ended up happening before the game started. The New Zealand Maori, similar to the Native Americans back at home, have a war cry that they chant when welcoming guests, before fighting, etc. This was primarily used back in the day. It is in the Maori language so I don't really understand it and is coupled with the men of the tribe (or rugby team) slapping their arms, chests, and legs while their eyes bulge and with their tongues sticking out. As I later found out it is meant to intimidate and psyche the tribe/team up for big events.
This war cry is called the haka and was made famous by the All Blacks, because after the national anthems of the 2 teams are played, the team performs the haka in front of the other team. Needless to say its intimidating as hell. Rugby players are huge and are rather fearsome to begin with, to see them yelling and batting their chests with eyes bulging and tongues out was really really impressive.
Here is a youtube video of what it looks like....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zvs4T4RU30
Pretty awesome if you ask me.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
3, 2, 1 BUNGY!!!!
Some myths about bungy jumping.
First, it doesn't hurt at all. Even if you watch someone go down somewhat awkwardly and they snap forward when the bungy catches them it actually feels quite comfy when you are actually doing it. It doesn't stretch you at all and the recoil is a lot of fun and zero discomfort, except for the water going up your noise. If you hang around New Zealand you will hear from every backpacker about how last week a girl in was jumping got scared and turned and grabbed her boyfriend who then fell to his death because he obviously wasn't attached to a bungy. Funny thing is this even always happened last week and is always in a different place in the world, South Africa/South America/New Zealand/anywhere else. The story is either a phony or a lot of people die bungy jumping and it is kept a secret, because the company in NZ tell you that no one has ever been seriously injured from a commercial bungy site. Rest assure I felt a heck of a lot safer bungy jumping than I have with most activities in the area.
I'll briefly try to explain the jumps.
The cord is made entirely of latex and has about 150 thin filaments tied up in bundles and there are 4 different sizes cords depending on your weight, which they tatoo on your hand for everyone to see. They fasten it to your feet and waist using a climbing harness with nylon webbing and caribiners. The nylon is tied into a slip knot which means it tightens when it is pulled at making it a fail-safe. They wrap a regular towel around your ankles for comfort so that it doesn't hurt and tighten everything up on you. You actually feel very safe with the equipment when its on you because it is so tight and looks strong enough to hold you. You then have to waddle out to the platform, by far the hardest part of jumping, and put your toes over the edge. You don't want to but of course you look down, then get your terrified picture taken before a comforting word from your jump master before you hear....3, 2, 1.....and you can't be that person to freak out on the platform so you just jump. Swan dive out, feel the rush of free fall consume your body and then plunge toward the river below.
The Kawarau Bridge was small enough that by the time you really felt like you were going fast you felt the cord pull at your feet and before you knew it you were dunked in the river below and recoiling back up. It's the classic bungy jump and I'm really really glad that I did it even though most consider it a waste because the other bungy in town is 3 times as high. The rush of the bungy and the feeling of the recoiling is very difficult to describe. The feeling of water up your noise from the splashdown a bit easier to grasp. But the experience as a whole is incredible and witnessed by my entire Kiwi Experience bus. I was most surprised at how accurately they can control your jump height. I told them waist deep in the water and they got it perfectly, which, knowing the basics physics of it all is quite impressive. After the jump they lower you down to the river level so you can hop in a yellow boat to take you back to land (see pictures below)
Having done the "small" jump I felt very ready for the big one. You don't jump from a bridge at Nevis, but are brought out to a pod over a canyon that you jump from which is 134m above the canyon floor. It's a similar procedure to the bridge but they attach a few more ropes and safety measure to you for this one. I kept telling myself, and actually believed it at one point, that the river looked just as far from the Kawarau bridge bungy despite the fact that it's 3 times as far away. This helped settle my nerves. What didn't help settle my nerves was when part of the bungy got frayed on the jump before mine and they were cutting bits off of it and tying new pieces on.....what the hell are you doing??? I asked and they said making it faster...at least they had a sense of humor. I still felt safe though and knew they wouldn't let me jump if it was actually a problem, after the jump they told me it happens all of the time and some of the latex strands that help stabilize the vibrations in the cord pop out when they are doing there job....thankfully my engineering brain knew what they were saying and the fact that they popped out means they were in fact doing their job.....but its not fun to see a bungy cord tied to your feet and scissors in anyones hands. I waddled out to the platform and realized that this was in fact much higher than the bridge but didn't dare let myself be the wimp that didn't jump after they did the countdown, so off I went. Here is a timeline of what went through my head.
Seconds 0-1: What the hell did I just do accompanied with the usual feeling of gravity pulling you downwards.
Seconds 1-2: This is amazing. Smile on my face, loving my life
Seconds 2-3: Ok, I'm starting to go really really fast, like close to 100mph at this point and the ground is coming at me really really fast now and I still haven't felt the cord.
Seconds 3-4: A slight tug....the BUNGY!!! It actually works. On my video my arms were paralyzed until I felt the bungy which kind of jolts you forward. That little jolt scared me a bit apparently because I started flapping my arms at this point.
Seconds 4-5: Again, this is amazing
Seconds 5-8: Laughing with joy and the fact that I was still alive.
Second 8.5: Yeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, recoiling back up 300 or so feet.
Once the jump was over I was trembling with excitement. Dangling by my waist at this point, you can release the harness from your feet so you aren't hanging upside down, I waited for the rope to come down to pull me all the way back up to the cable car. The entire jump lasted for about 15 seconds, the pull back up maybe a minute, but it has to rank as one of the best things I have ever done. Part of the great feeling from it all is the fact that you had the guts to actually do it, the company will NOT push you off. Overcoming that fear in you is simply amazing and something I'm actually quite proud of and the jump itself is an adrenalin rush like no other. You could have performed minor surgery on me after the jump and I probably wouldn't have felt it because I was so high on adrenalin.
If you can, bungy, it is something you will never forget and you will love every second of it....after you get over the initial terror of jumping.
View from the platform of the Kawarau Bridge (140 foot free fall)
Side view of Kawarau bridge
Side view of the Nevis bungy jump
Platform view from Nevis, terrifyingly high
First, it doesn't hurt at all. Even if you watch someone go down somewhat awkwardly and they snap forward when the bungy catches them it actually feels quite comfy when you are actually doing it. It doesn't stretch you at all and the recoil is a lot of fun and zero discomfort, except for the water going up your noise. If you hang around New Zealand you will hear from every backpacker about how last week a girl in was jumping got scared and turned and grabbed her boyfriend who then fell to his death because he obviously wasn't attached to a bungy. Funny thing is this even always happened last week and is always in a different place in the world, South Africa/South America/New Zealand/anywhere else. The story is either a phony or a lot of people die bungy jumping and it is kept a secret, because the company in NZ tell you that no one has ever been seriously injured from a commercial bungy site. Rest assure I felt a heck of a lot safer bungy jumping than I have with most activities in the area.
I'll briefly try to explain the jumps.
The cord is made entirely of latex and has about 150 thin filaments tied up in bundles and there are 4 different sizes cords depending on your weight, which they tatoo on your hand for everyone to see. They fasten it to your feet and waist using a climbing harness with nylon webbing and caribiners. The nylon is tied into a slip knot which means it tightens when it is pulled at making it a fail-safe. They wrap a regular towel around your ankles for comfort so that it doesn't hurt and tighten everything up on you. You actually feel very safe with the equipment when its on you because it is so tight and looks strong enough to hold you. You then have to waddle out to the platform, by far the hardest part of jumping, and put your toes over the edge. You don't want to but of course you look down, then get your terrified picture taken before a comforting word from your jump master before you hear....3, 2, 1.....and you can't be that person to freak out on the platform so you just jump. Swan dive out, feel the rush of free fall consume your body and then plunge toward the river below.
The Kawarau Bridge was small enough that by the time you really felt like you were going fast you felt the cord pull at your feet and before you knew it you were dunked in the river below and recoiling back up. It's the classic bungy jump and I'm really really glad that I did it even though most consider it a waste because the other bungy in town is 3 times as high. The rush of the bungy and the feeling of the recoiling is very difficult to describe. The feeling of water up your noise from the splashdown a bit easier to grasp. But the experience as a whole is incredible and witnessed by my entire Kiwi Experience bus. I was most surprised at how accurately they can control your jump height. I told them waist deep in the water and they got it perfectly, which, knowing the basics physics of it all is quite impressive. After the jump they lower you down to the river level so you can hop in a yellow boat to take you back to land (see pictures below)
Having done the "small" jump I felt very ready for the big one. You don't jump from a bridge at Nevis, but are brought out to a pod over a canyon that you jump from which is 134m above the canyon floor. It's a similar procedure to the bridge but they attach a few more ropes and safety measure to you for this one. I kept telling myself, and actually believed it at one point, that the river looked just as far from the Kawarau bridge bungy despite the fact that it's 3 times as far away. This helped settle my nerves. What didn't help settle my nerves was when part of the bungy got frayed on the jump before mine and they were cutting bits off of it and tying new pieces on.....what the hell are you doing??? I asked and they said making it faster...at least they had a sense of humor. I still felt safe though and knew they wouldn't let me jump if it was actually a problem, after the jump they told me it happens all of the time and some of the latex strands that help stabilize the vibrations in the cord pop out when they are doing there job....thankfully my engineering brain knew what they were saying and the fact that they popped out means they were in fact doing their job.....but its not fun to see a bungy cord tied to your feet and scissors in anyones hands. I waddled out to the platform and realized that this was in fact much higher than the bridge but didn't dare let myself be the wimp that didn't jump after they did the countdown, so off I went. Here is a timeline of what went through my head.
Seconds 0-1: What the hell did I just do accompanied with the usual feeling of gravity pulling you downwards.
Seconds 1-2: This is amazing. Smile on my face, loving my life
Seconds 2-3: Ok, I'm starting to go really really fast, like close to 100mph at this point and the ground is coming at me really really fast now and I still haven't felt the cord.
Seconds 3-4: A slight tug....the BUNGY!!! It actually works. On my video my arms were paralyzed until I felt the bungy which kind of jolts you forward. That little jolt scared me a bit apparently because I started flapping my arms at this point.
Seconds 4-5: Again, this is amazing
Seconds 5-8: Laughing with joy and the fact that I was still alive.
Second 8.5: Yeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, recoiling back up 300 or so feet.
Once the jump was over I was trembling with excitement. Dangling by my waist at this point, you can release the harness from your feet so you aren't hanging upside down, I waited for the rope to come down to pull me all the way back up to the cable car. The entire jump lasted for about 15 seconds, the pull back up maybe a minute, but it has to rank as one of the best things I have ever done. Part of the great feeling from it all is the fact that you had the guts to actually do it, the company will NOT push you off. Overcoming that fear in you is simply amazing and something I'm actually quite proud of and the jump itself is an adrenalin rush like no other. You could have performed minor surgery on me after the jump and I probably wouldn't have felt it because I was so high on adrenalin.
If you can, bungy, it is something you will never forget and you will love every second of it....after you get over the initial terror of jumping.
View from the platform of the Kawarau Bridge (140 foot free fall)
Side view of Kawarau bridge
Side view of the Nevis bungy jump
Platform view from Nevis, terrifyingly high
The Adventure Capital of the World
Queenstown, New Zealand. Oh, Queenstown.
Everyone talks about Queenstown when you are in New Zealand and how much fun it is. It was hyped up a ton and frankly, it lives up to the hype. Every night here is like a Saturday night and is probably the best "party" city I've been to outside of Vegas. The home of bungy jumping has to have a serious nightlife right?
On the way into Queenstown from Wanaka we first stopped at Puzzling World which is just a giant puzzle. Slanted rooms, crazy mirrors, and all sorts of tricks to make you feel really dizzy. They have an Ames room there, which is a distorted room that makes people appear to be giants or tiny, if you've seen Lord of the Rings it is the technique they used to make the hobbits seem tiny. When you look at the room it looks perfectly normal, but the people inside look to be dramatically different in size, they do this by changing the ceiling height and angling the walls to make the perspective change......or something like that, I'm not really sure but it was cool to see.
About an hour down the road we got to the historic Kawarau Bridge, the home of bungy jumping. It was the first commercial site in the world and opened in 1988. The jump is over a river and you can do the classic "water" touch into the river below. We watched a movie on the "secrets" of bungy and they showed us how the latex cords are made. Of the 50 people on the buss, only 2 decided to jump....I was one of them. The bridge isn't the highest bungy in New Zealand, it is only 43m (or 145ft) but it was an intense and a lot of fun. I jumped without a shirt for the ladies and to keep my clothes dry for the water touch. I got a DVD of it and pictures that I'll post in a later post dedicated solely to the jumps.
Upon arriving in Queenstown your Kiwi bus takes a group photo over the lake with the Remarkables (mountain range) in the background. The Remarkables are aptly named as they are rather remarkable. The entire town of Queenstown is screaming with beauty to be honest.
From Queenstown I took a tour of the Milford Sound which is a 4 hour drive out of town. I've seen a lot of beautiful things in the past couple years.....the Rockies, Sierras, National parks of Utah, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Himalayas, etc.....and can honestly say that the Milford Sound tops them all. It was breathtaking in scale and beauty and we went on a day when there wasn't a single cloud in the sky....that happens about a dozen times a year we were told. I have often said that pictures don't do scenery justice, but I actually mean it about this place. 2,000m peaks shoot up out of the ocean in all directions with immaculate waterfalls cascading down their slopes. A trip to New Zealand without going here would be like a trip to Egypt without going to the pyramids, I can't begin to describe how amazing it was. It was so nice I went twice actually.
Then came the mountain biking, a disaster waiting to happen. I can't confirm if the water spins the other way in toilets because the toilets flush with water shooting everywhere here, but I can tell you that the brakes on bikes are backwards here. Left brake is the rear, right is the front. Great.....that made me flip at least twice, the other crash, well I can blame it on the brakes but I kinda just lost it and flipped over backwards going up this rock/stump thing. It was great fun though and I ended up covered in mud by the end of it, obviously it was amazing.
The next day I rented a car and braved driving on the wrong side of the road and from the wrong side of the car. This country is backwards. Drove up to do a day walk on the Routeburn Track which is one of the most Great Walks in NZ. I went up to Conical Hill for some panoramic shots of the southern Alps and the hike, although it took 8 hours, was insanely nice.
But you can't come to the adventure capital of the world and home of bungy without going big, so I signed up for the Nevis High Wire, the 2nd highest bungy jump in the world. Falling out of a cable car suspended over a canyon is amazing. It was a 134m or 440foot drop. You are falling for a total of 8.5 seconds. Think about that for a second. Sing the intro the Beatles song "Help".....Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody. Help! you know I need someone. Helpppp! That is 8 seconds long and you are falling for the entire time. I thought the bridge was a little scary, but the freefall on this one is 3 times higher and you pick up a LOT of speed. My first thought after the jump...shit, what did I just do, the next thought, this is AWESOME. Then reality started to hit me that the ground was coming at my face awfully quickly before feeling the cord gradually slow me down. I have a DVD of my jump but if you'd care to see what it look like watch this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzZJSvKPqw
In all honestly it was one of the most fun things I have ever done. The feeling is impossible to describe but I never had imagined something could possibly be so much fun.
Everyone talks about Queenstown when you are in New Zealand and how much fun it is. It was hyped up a ton and frankly, it lives up to the hype. Every night here is like a Saturday night and is probably the best "party" city I've been to outside of Vegas. The home of bungy jumping has to have a serious nightlife right?
On the way into Queenstown from Wanaka we first stopped at Puzzling World which is just a giant puzzle. Slanted rooms, crazy mirrors, and all sorts of tricks to make you feel really dizzy. They have an Ames room there, which is a distorted room that makes people appear to be giants or tiny, if you've seen Lord of the Rings it is the technique they used to make the hobbits seem tiny. When you look at the room it looks perfectly normal, but the people inside look to be dramatically different in size, they do this by changing the ceiling height and angling the walls to make the perspective change......or something like that, I'm not really sure but it was cool to see.
About an hour down the road we got to the historic Kawarau Bridge, the home of bungy jumping. It was the first commercial site in the world and opened in 1988. The jump is over a river and you can do the classic "water" touch into the river below. We watched a movie on the "secrets" of bungy and they showed us how the latex cords are made. Of the 50 people on the buss, only 2 decided to jump....I was one of them. The bridge isn't the highest bungy in New Zealand, it is only 43m (or 145ft) but it was an intense and a lot of fun. I jumped without a shirt for the ladies and to keep my clothes dry for the water touch. I got a DVD of it and pictures that I'll post in a later post dedicated solely to the jumps.
Upon arriving in Queenstown your Kiwi bus takes a group photo over the lake with the Remarkables (mountain range) in the background. The Remarkables are aptly named as they are rather remarkable. The entire town of Queenstown is screaming with beauty to be honest.
From Queenstown I took a tour of the Milford Sound which is a 4 hour drive out of town. I've seen a lot of beautiful things in the past couple years.....the Rockies, Sierras, National parks of Utah, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Himalayas, etc.....and can honestly say that the Milford Sound tops them all. It was breathtaking in scale and beauty and we went on a day when there wasn't a single cloud in the sky....that happens about a dozen times a year we were told. I have often said that pictures don't do scenery justice, but I actually mean it about this place. 2,000m peaks shoot up out of the ocean in all directions with immaculate waterfalls cascading down their slopes. A trip to New Zealand without going here would be like a trip to Egypt without going to the pyramids, I can't begin to describe how amazing it was. It was so nice I went twice actually.
Then came the mountain biking, a disaster waiting to happen. I can't confirm if the water spins the other way in toilets because the toilets flush with water shooting everywhere here, but I can tell you that the brakes on bikes are backwards here. Left brake is the rear, right is the front. Great.....that made me flip at least twice, the other crash, well I can blame it on the brakes but I kinda just lost it and flipped over backwards going up this rock/stump thing. It was great fun though and I ended up covered in mud by the end of it, obviously it was amazing.
The next day I rented a car and braved driving on the wrong side of the road and from the wrong side of the car. This country is backwards. Drove up to do a day walk on the Routeburn Track which is one of the most Great Walks in NZ. I went up to Conical Hill for some panoramic shots of the southern Alps and the hike, although it took 8 hours, was insanely nice.
But you can't come to the adventure capital of the world and home of bungy without going big, so I signed up for the Nevis High Wire, the 2nd highest bungy jump in the world. Falling out of a cable car suspended over a canyon is amazing. It was a 134m or 440foot drop. You are falling for a total of 8.5 seconds. Think about that for a second. Sing the intro the Beatles song "Help".....Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody. Help! you know I need someone. Helpppp! That is 8 seconds long and you are falling for the entire time. I thought the bridge was a little scary, but the freefall on this one is 3 times higher and you pick up a LOT of speed. My first thought after the jump...shit, what did I just do, the next thought, this is AWESOME. Then reality started to hit me that the ground was coming at my face awfully quickly before feeling the cord gradually slow me down. I have a DVD of my jump but if you'd care to see what it look like watch this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzZJSvKPqw
In all honestly it was one of the most fun things I have ever done. The feeling is impossible to describe but I never had imagined something could possibly be so much fun.
An inspiring national park
The name of the national park in Wanaka is Mt Aspiring National Park, but I found it to be rather inspiring so I changed the name in my head. Before heading into the park I did a walk through a Tartare Tunnel which was a man-made gold mining tunnel built at the turn of the 20th century, the entire west coast of NZ had the largest gold rush in the southern hemisphere so there are several of these tunnels around the area. This one just happens to be a longer one, and in the end the tunnel produced virtually no gold and was converted to a hydro-electric power plant. It was somewhat creepy in there and I got my first view of the famous New Zealand glow-worms, which were less than spectacular....oh well, at least something in New Zealand didn't live up to the hype. Lightning bugs are much cooler.
Going into Wanaka from the glaciers requires that you cross over the southern Alps to their eastern (dry) side. The terrain was remarkable different as soon as you crossed the divide. The west coast is filled with subtropical rainforest due to the amount of rain they get, but the eastern side only gets a tenth of the rain that the west coast gets so its a much dryer environment. The forecast was nice, so I hitched a ride to the trail-head in the Matukituki Valley....talk about an awesome name for a valley....and hiked up to the Rob Roy Glacier. Despite the fact that I didn't care too much for the name of the glacier, reminds me of Roy Rogers for some reason, the glacier was beautiful. There wasn't really a terminal face to it as the end of it extended out over a cliff, which makes for some dramatic (and loud) avalanches of falling ice. The ice was perfectly clean and was the perfect example of the famous blue glacier ice. From the viewing point you are somewhat far away from it but crevices and ice fall of the glacier looked menacing, not somewhere that would be safe to walk on.
The walk through the valley itself was breathtaking and really made you feel tiny. The valley was about 2 miles wide with mile high peaks on both sides. The walls are very rugged and cut at extremely steep angles because they were originally carved by glaciers during the ice age. The mountains on the left side of the valley were a masterpiece. New Zealand is at the merging point of 2 of the earths tectonic plates. One is going under the other which causes the uplift for the southern Alps. The mountains in this valley made this force remarkably clear. One side of the slope was a continuous rise upwards (the plate on top) while the other was a series of sharp ridges (bottom plate) that dropped nearly vertical from the valley floor, I'll have to find a picture to better show this, but take my word for it that it was really cool to see.
The valley was also covered with cows and thus lots of cow poo which raises the very interesting question, which animal poops more the yaks in Nepal or the New Zealand cows? I'll have to look into that. The valley walls were littered with hundreds of small to large water falls that made for a spectacular hike. I stayed overnight in Aspiring Hut in the park with a few other guests. The next morning I climbed to the top of Cascade Saddle which is the start of the Rees-Dart Track that goes down into Fiordlands National Park. It was a bit cloudy on top so the views weren't unbelievable but the hike itself was nice and exhausting.
Once I finished the walk I hitched a ride back to town and went to the famous movie theater there. I mean, a theater that has couches for you to sit on and has intermission to give everyone freshly baked cookies and homemade ice cream has to be famous right?
Wanaka has certainly been a highlight of New Zealand
Going into Wanaka from the glaciers requires that you cross over the southern Alps to their eastern (dry) side. The terrain was remarkable different as soon as you crossed the divide. The west coast is filled with subtropical rainforest due to the amount of rain they get, but the eastern side only gets a tenth of the rain that the west coast gets so its a much dryer environment. The forecast was nice, so I hitched a ride to the trail-head in the Matukituki Valley....talk about an awesome name for a valley....and hiked up to the Rob Roy Glacier. Despite the fact that I didn't care too much for the name of the glacier, reminds me of Roy Rogers for some reason, the glacier was beautiful. There wasn't really a terminal face to it as the end of it extended out over a cliff, which makes for some dramatic (and loud) avalanches of falling ice. The ice was perfectly clean and was the perfect example of the famous blue glacier ice. From the viewing point you are somewhat far away from it but crevices and ice fall of the glacier looked menacing, not somewhere that would be safe to walk on.
The walk through the valley itself was breathtaking and really made you feel tiny. The valley was about 2 miles wide with mile high peaks on both sides. The walls are very rugged and cut at extremely steep angles because they were originally carved by glaciers during the ice age. The mountains on the left side of the valley were a masterpiece. New Zealand is at the merging point of 2 of the earths tectonic plates. One is going under the other which causes the uplift for the southern Alps. The mountains in this valley made this force remarkably clear. One side of the slope was a continuous rise upwards (the plate on top) while the other was a series of sharp ridges (bottom plate) that dropped nearly vertical from the valley floor, I'll have to find a picture to better show this, but take my word for it that it was really cool to see.
The valley was also covered with cows and thus lots of cow poo which raises the very interesting question, which animal poops more the yaks in Nepal or the New Zealand cows? I'll have to look into that. The valley walls were littered with hundreds of small to large water falls that made for a spectacular hike. I stayed overnight in Aspiring Hut in the park with a few other guests. The next morning I climbed to the top of Cascade Saddle which is the start of the Rees-Dart Track that goes down into Fiordlands National Park. It was a bit cloudy on top so the views weren't unbelievable but the hike itself was nice and exhausting.
Once I finished the walk I hitched a ride back to town and went to the famous movie theater there. I mean, a theater that has couches for you to sit on and has intermission to give everyone freshly baked cookies and homemade ice cream has to be famous right?
Wanaka has certainly been a highlight of New Zealand
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