10 July 2007 · Comment [3]
The first awesome thing we did: tubing through a glow worm cave
New Zealand reminds me of the mountains of West Virginia except with palm trees and that is awesome. On Friday we went “black water rafting,” which is tubing in a glow worm cave and it was so awesome but way more demanding than I’d expected out of a tubing trip. I was the last person in the chain of people, so I kept getting whipped around and at one point my light fell off my hat and the group moved swiftly away from me and it was like a nightmare trying to catch up because I couldn’t swim in the heavy rain boots but fortunately the girl in front of me looked after me and made sure I didn’t get deserted in the pitch black cave and take a wrong turn and diiiie.
I liked/was terrified by this huge steep slide where it looks like you’re going to hit an overhanging rock but miss it at the last second. The glow worms were totally awesome, too. They looked like green planetarium stars. I thought they’d coat the ceiling but apparently they spread out because they’re carnivorous. And they’re actually larvae that will one day develop to have wings but no mouth so that they only live for a few days to mate and then they die. So they’re not actually worms but no one would pay to see the carnivorous-glow-maggot caves so there you go.
And speaking of animals mating:
Today Jono and I saw our first real life kiwi bird. It was so freaking cute. And then a second one came out and started mating with the first one and it was soooo cute! Oh man so cute. These two English girls were in the kiwi house with me and they were like “Nooo, I don’t want to see that!” and I was like “Are you kidding? How often do you get to see kiwis, let alone kiwis MATING?!” The female put up with it for a little while and then she’d had enough and chased the male off but it’s like come on, you’re an endangered species, just do your duty! Also, I was wondering how kiwis get the food from the end of their long beaks into their mouths and it turns out they flick their heads forward and back and kind of rocket the food into their throats. It’s really cute, trust me.
Also, we hiked to Mount Doom, the best Mount of them all. I wouldn’t have wanted to go if not for this quote from The Office:
Jim: Dwight, if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Dwight: I can travel anywhere, except Cuba, and I will travel to New Zealand and walk the Lord of the Rings trail to Mordor and I will hike Mount Doom.
I could never in good conscience call myself an Office fan if I’d gone to New Zealand and not hiked to Mount Doom, so two days ago Jono and I totally did it. And sweet sassy molassey it was hard. Ten hours of hiking, and the second forty-five minutes were at like a sixty-degree incline, so there were rocks at like waist-level every step and you had to pull yourself up and our squishy fast-food-fed American bodies were just not up the the challenge. I think I went plum retarded a third of the way through. I kept thinking things like “How the hell did those hobbits manage this in bare feet?!?!?!” It was by far the most strenuous thing I’d done since getting a chunk of lung removed two years ago and breathing was soooo hard that I wanted to die a little bit. Okay a lot bit. And like, you’d think that getting part of an organ removed would make hiking long distances easier because that’s less to carry but no, it turns out the lungs are two of the most important body parts when it comes to hiking straight up. But it was so awesome and gorgeous and we went to freaking Mount Doom! So basically I am better than Dwight, which I didn’t think was even possible. And the best part was when we slid down the snow on the other side of the mountain for like hundreds of meters at a time.
Yep, things are going pretty well on this trip. I sleep from 8pm to 6am, which at home is 4am to 2pm so it’s perfect! I do keep getting all worked up over things that usually turn out to be totally controllable, which I wanted to learn how to stop doing while on this trip but it’s harrrrrd. There haven’t been any opportunities to upload pictures from my camera, which is irritating but maybe someday I’ll find a place that’ll do that. Also it’s really freaking cold here but hopefully things will get much more comfortable once we leave New Zealand. Plus suffering through the cold builds character. Or something. I don’t know. I kind of wish I were going home soon but there are so many awesome things left to see and do that it’s okay. Day-to-day planning is so fun because it’s like all the trip research that I’ve been doing for the past three years except now whenever I find something awesome to do, instead of putting it on a list of things that I have to do when I’m on my big trip, I go out and do it the next day! So that’s rad. I miss everyone very much. Email me if you’d like a postcard.
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Don’t worry you’ll get over that whole not being able to control everything worrying thing. It totally changes you. Europe made me so much more chill as a result and I think it will have the same effect. Yay kiwis! Also all this exercise sounds like you will be even mega-hotter when you get back. Niiiice.
— Noaa · Jul 10, 03:46 PM · #
Sounds like you’re having a fabulous adventure! Thanks fo sharing,
— Arlene Deutsch · Jul 19, 06:18 AM · #
Noaa is totally right that you just have to learn to go with the flow which is so hard!!! but totally life-altering. you’re having the bestest time ever! I’m sooo happy for you!!
— Jovanna · Jul 24, 09:51 AM · #