Kia Ora!

Kim has now noticed the outside of the campa. The logo, Juicy Lucy, is plastered above the windshield, and there is a provocative, 1950's pin-up gal on the side. Lucy, I suppose. She finds the whole thing less amusing than do I, but I think it's just the jet lag.

We have had an adventurous day. We arrived at the Black Water Rafting Co. at 8:45am for our 9am rafting trip. It's a bit rainy and overcast, so it's a great day to be underground. When our tour was called, we proceeded out to the courtyard to get our gear: full wetsuit, helmet (skid lid), booties, boots, and Erkel shorts. The suits were still wet from the day before, so it was quite chilly getting into them. Little did I know that my feet would not be warm again for another three hours. With our gear on, we took the bus to a little stream near the cave. Kim volunteered me to be the first to jump backwards, tube around me bum, 12 feet down to the stream. I did and landed upright! Wowee that water was cold, 6-8 Celsius. I haven't made the conversion yet because I'm not sure I want to know. We floated down to a ladder, got back out, into the bus, and to the cave. We will have to jump like that two more times, but in the cave, so they wanted to have us practice once without all the rocks. At the cave, Kim again volunteered me to go first. I did and landed upright! We spelunked down a corridor into an area of rushing water. The guide pointed forward and told me to keep going until I came to the fork. Uh, OK. So I tripped, splashed, and climbed around, inner tube on my shoulder, and Kim somewhere behind me. We got to the fork and the girl guide, Snappy, asked which way I'd like to choose. "That way sounds the loudest, hence the potentially funniest, so I choose that way." She gave me a nudge into the tube, and I floated into the darkness. We got to an area where we all grabbed the boots of the person behind us. We turned off our torches (flashlights) and laid back. On the ceiling of the cave were millions of glow worms, creating amazing constellations. We learned that they aren't actually worms, but it's harder to attract tourists when you call them what they are: maggots. We spent a few minutes in this area enjoying the light show. It looked just like the clear, night sky, but the stars were glowing green instead of white. Snappy turned on her torch and aimed it at the roof. From each glow worm, they extended about 30 little fishing lines to catch their food as it passes by the cave. Luckily, we were still a couple feet below the lines! We continued on jumping, floating, and climbing our way to the other end of the cave. Although the water was skin-numbingly cold, just my hands and feet were cold. Well, frozen is a better word. The whole trip was awesome, and although Kim had been apprehensive with the trip booking, she was very happy to have done it. A hot shower, hot soup and hot bagel awaited us, after the ordeal of getting cold wetsuits off.

We drove to Rotorua, at times, in heavy rain. Kim is still having some issues with the traffic, but I have apparently gotten used to driving on the left. Often, she'll look up, gasp, then give me a very embarrassed smile. I think I'm doing well, I haven't driven in the wrong lane in a few days.

In Rotorua, we went to the cultural show presented by Tamaki. They invite you to a traditional Maori village, where you wander around and observe them engaged in traditional activities, watch a dance and song performance, then have a hangi feast. The hangi is cooked in the ground for 4-5 hours, with white hot rocks heated from fire. The meat goes on the rocks first, then veggies, then dessert. They had cooked lamb, chicken, fish, as well as carrots, kamuris (not sure on the spelling but a sweet potato), and white potatoes. I tried everything but the chicken. It was all very good, then we had dessert. I passed on the traditional steam pudding and went straight to the pavlova. The American woman at our table told us that pavlova is the favorite dessert of kiwis (New Zealanders). Now I'm sure I must have been a kiwi in a previous life. This stuff was awesome. Kim said it was straight sugar, but I'm sure there were a few more ingredients. It was like a soufflé with kiwi fruit on top. Yum.

We got home by 9:30 and are off to the south part of the north island tomorrow.Read more