{"id":1189,"date":"2011-01-19T21:08:17","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T05:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2011-01-19T21:56:53","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T05:56:53","slug":"new-zealand-days-1-3-planes-cars-glowworms-and-mud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand Days 1-3 : Planes, Cars, Glowworms and Mud"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OOOOk.\u00a0 Are you ready?\u00a0 I’m not sure I am.\u00a0 Here we go.<\/p>\n

Tom and I went to New Zealand over the Christmas holidays, and the question that inevitably is asked by everyone is, “How was your trip?”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The answer I’ve been giving everyone is, “It was bipolar”.\u00a0 When it was great, it was really really great, and when it was not so great, it was really really <\/em>not so great.\u00a0 There was rain, brilliant sunshine, a few torrential downpours, an earthquake, national flooding and blue skies.\u00a0 We ate weird food like chicken flavoured chips, fancy McDonalds,\u00a0 hokey pokey ice cream\u00a0and lots of different Cadbury products.\u00a0 We visited the mountains, the lakes, the glaciers and the beach.\u00a0 We went to five different national parks and slept under the brilliant stars.\u00a0 We saw the Southern Cross.\u00a0 We experienced a wide range of emotions, from crushing disappointment to manic glee and everywhere in between.\u00a0 In short, our trip to New Zealand is not one I will soon forget.<\/p>\n

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We left Seattle on Friday afternoon and flew down to LA with our two large backpacking packs, camera gear and “toy bags” for the plane.\u00a0 The LA airport is it’s own special Hell.\u00a0 The domestic terminals and the international terminals are not in the same building, and we had to shlep all of our belongings through two parking decks and across many busy streets to arrive in the international area.\u00a0 It was also raining…I thought it never rained in LA??\u00a0 After finally finding our correct gate and killing some time eating overpriced Burger King, we finally were ready to get on the plane.\u00a0 We had a direct flight from LA to Auckland, New Zealand, so we were in it for the long haul.\u00a0 The flight is every minute of 13 hours, which is a long time, if you were\u00a0wondering.\u00a0 We were in coach, which while being worlds better than flying coach domestically, was still the “low rent” district of the plane.\u00a0 I was entertained by the safety video for Air New Zealand<\/a>, which features their beloved national rugby team, the All Blacks.\u00a0 They did serve us two full meals on the flight, (with complementary beverages, which were necessary after around hour 8…), and we had our own little screen thingys on the back of the seat in front of us\u00a0which provided a\u00a0nearly endless supply of movies.\u00a0 Tom slept for most of the flight, and I spent most of the time trying to not to think about the vast expanse of open water thousands of feet below.<\/p>\n

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Another “program” on the tv screen was the “flight information” program which had a little icon of an airplane that you could watch creep slowly around the world from LA to Auckland.\u00a0 After what seemed like days (which technically it was), the totally out of scale airplane icon arrived at New Zealand, and sure enough, there was LAND outside of our window!\u00a0 Real LAND!\u00a0 After getting off the plane we were processed through customs.\u00a0 We had to declare our tent and our hiking boots for inspection due to strict regulations on soil contaminants being brought into the country.\u00a0 As we were taking out our contraband, a man behind us in line says, “Do I have to declare these?”, and holds up two <\/em>compressed fuel canisters.\u00a0 Since these are so far against the normal rules of what you can bring on an airplane, they were of course seized immediately and the guy was\u00a0taken aside\u00a0for questioning, still looking baffled about what he had done wrong.\u00a0 Luckily, our tent passed inspection, and we were ready to take on our rental car!\u00a0 Don’t laugh too much at the pale person next to the car.\u00a0 She lives in a world without sunshine in the winter months.<\/p>\n

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Tom drove on the left side of the road when we were in Ireland and the UK last summer, so I wasn’t to worried about his driving ability.\u00a0 We plugged in our trusty GPS that we have dubbed,\u00a0“Penny”, and were off.\u00a0 We decided to head south to our bed and breakfast where we would be staying for the next few nights.\u00a0 Somersal Bed and Breakfast <\/a>is a lovely little place with lushly landscaped gardens and incredibly kind hosts.\u00a0 We were greeted with a warm smile and a cup of tea, which was nice, as it was raining, (you will sense a theme here).\u00a0 They also had a few sheep, which everyone seems to have, and which also happened to be grazing right outside our window.\u00a0 Quaint.\u00a0 That night, we ventured\u00a0 down to the local pub, where people kept wandering up to our table to chat, simply because we looked “new”.\u00a0 The Kiwis, as the New Zealanders call themselves, were all very nice to us totally strung out and jet lagged foreigners.<\/p>\n

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The next morning, we feasted on a delicious breakfast prepared by our hosts, which was\u00a0very similar to\u00a0the “British” breakfasts we got at so many B&Bs in the UK, but there was bacon, so we weren’t complaining.\u00a0 We then headed down to Wiatomo to visit the famed glowworm caves.\u00a0 These caves are known for having\u00a0millions of small, blueish pricks of light sprinkled\u00a0along their ceilings.\u00a0 These lights are the “worms”, which really aren’t worms at all, but larval stages of a type of fungal\u00a0gnat.\u00a0 Glowworms sounds better in the marketing material though.\u00a0 There are many different outfitters who work in the area providing all manner of adventurous ways to experience the caves, but all we were really interested in seeing was the glowwoms themselves, so we opted for a more calm tour.\u00a0 We booked with Spellbound Glowworm and Cave Tours<\/a>, which gave us a three hour tour of two different caves, one wet, with the glowworms and one that was a drier, more traditional, limestone cave with all the formations that are typical to these types of caves.\u00a0 Our guide was very knowlegable and gave us lots of details about the worms and caves.\u00a0 In the glowworm cave, we walked\u00a0for a bit and were able to see the strands the larve\u00a0drop down to catch their pray who are drawn to their light.\u00a0 We then boarded a\u00a0rubber raft, turned out our lights, and our guide pulled us\u00a0through the grotto\u00a0hand over hand\u00a0using a rope fixed overhead.\u00a0 It was very\u00a0peaceful in the dark\u00a0with the little blue lights splayed out above us like so many strange and unfamiliar\u00a0constilations in\u00a0the night sky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The dry cave was also very interesting.\u00a0 There were your traditional stalactites and mites and other beautiful limestone formations.\u00a0 There were also several places where sinkholes had broken through into the cave, and the sky above was exposed.\u00a0 These holes are dangerous traps for animals though, and there were the bones of a few unfortunate souls who misstepped.<\/p>\n

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Later that day, after we emerged into the land of light, (and rain), we headed up towards Rotorura to visit some of the active geo-thermal sites there.\u00a0 We arrived too late to visit the Thermal Wonderland we had wanted to see, but were able to find the bubbling mud pools!\u00a0 Let’s just say, you should be thankful these photos are not scratch and sniff.\u00a0 The sulpher smell was nearly overpowering, as if a million eggs had all spoiled at once and you were forced to breathe it it.\u00a0 Or as Ludo says in Labrinth<\/em>\u00a0 “SMELL BAD!!!”\u00a0 The bubbling, burbling, squirt and\u00a0 belching mud was pretty need though, even if it was noisy and smelly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Next up…Tongoriro National Park and Wellington!<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 The photo credits for many of these early photos go to Tom, as I was too jetlagged and crazy to take pictures…\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Note #2 :\u00a0 These posts are long.\u00a0 I am sorry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Note # 3\u00a0:\u00a0 More photos can be found on my Picasa site <\/a>or Tom’s Picasa site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OOOOk.\u00a0 Are you ready?\u00a0 I’m not sure I am.\u00a0 Here we go. Tom and I went to New Zealand over the Christmas holidays, and the…<\/p>\n

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