The Last Two Weeks of My Life

And as in last, I mean the two weeks previous to right now not like the last two weeks of my entire life. Just to clarify. Ok, brace yourselves for picture and info overload. I might repeat a little of what I’ve included in my previous posts but this way, you’ll get the whole picture. The following is my best attempt at summarizing these last two weeks on the road.

AUCKLAND

The best thing to note about our travels across the ocean is our seatmate on the plane. Meet Matthew. Our good friend Matthew is a homosexual originally from Auckland who now lives in LA with his partner. He went into great detail about his relationship, how his family feels about it and some interesting experiences throughout his lifetime including his teenage years full of drug and alcohol experimentation. As we climbed on the plane, he pulled out a backpack-sized carry on full of nothing but prescription drugs. “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor,” he assured us as he pulled out a few of what he claimed to be the new and more effective form of Ambien. As he drifted off to sleep, he told us that he was also bipolar and suffered from an anxiety disorder. What a well-rounded guy! If you refer to Stefanie’s blog, you might hear about her interesting experience with Matthew’s scotch.

WHITIANGA

We stayed overnight here and went to a beach. The end.

HAMILTON

We didn’t actually stay here but we stopped at the temple on our way down to Waitomo. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and we spent some time at the temple grounds with some locals. The best part was (as I mentioned before I think) that there were some kids from New Caledonia there that only spoke French! I got to talk to them for a little while and translate for the group. One of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

These are some locals we hung out with at the temple. We sang and chatted with them.

WAITOMO

Here we stayed in my favorite place of the whole trip--a random backpacker’s lodge called Juno Hall. The people there were amazing and we got to camp there for two nights. We all loved it. Waitomo is a cool place too. We used our group budget to all go blackwater rafting. That was a cool experience. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of it since it was in a dark cave full of water. Bummer. The guides were hilarious though and we got to see some glow worms as we floated through the cave in wetsuits and big rubber tubes. I love these kiwis and the things they think up.

Later that same day, we got the completely kiwi experience of watching an angora rabbit being sheared. The best part of the experience for me was watching the little old lady give us a rundown on rabbit shearing.

ROTORUA

The worst thing about Rotorua was that there was too much to do! We all had so many options that we couldn’t make up our minds. I’m sure it’s not hard to imagine how tricky it can be to align the opinions of 34 college students. We again used the group funds to go down the luge. That was a good time. If you’ve ever experienced the alpine slide in Park City, just imagine that but 5x more intense and you’ve got yourself the Rotorua luge.

We were at this holiday park for 2 days. It was another good one, complete with river, paddle boats and ping pong table. Stefanie and I had a few tough competitions. It’s true, Stefanie came out on top in the end but it was probably the most intense ping pong I’ve ever played. The last game even went into double overtime! Anyway, the second day we were in Rotorua, we ended up going to the beach with about half of the group. It was a beautiful beach. It was there that I purchased my first bottle of sunscreen; for a mere $20. That was slightly shocking. This day at the beach also opened all of our eyes to the ferocity of the New Zealand sun. Evidently, there’s a hole in the ozone around these parts and the sun just beats through. Needlesstosay, we all got a little pink but quickly learned the ways of the sun.

TAUPO

As soon as we arrived in our next destination, everyone’s first idea was to go to the beach. There were a select few of us that were feeling rather crisp and decided that it might be a better idea to hang out in town that night. We did a little souvenir shopping, but mostly stuck to window shopping seeing as most things closed down at 4pm.

The next day was one of my favorite of the whole two weeks. We hiked at a place called Tongariro Crossing; probably more familiar to most people as--Mordor!! That’s right, I hiked through Mordor. I don’t know if you can tell from the pictures, but it was incredible. It was about a 12-mile hike that we managed to do in about five and a half hours.

This is the best picture I've gotten this trip so far! (the one above...)

The view from the top.