Activities Galore

This post is part of a series detailing my activities, thoughts and feelings as I make a five-week expedition across the beautiful lands of New Zealand (NZ).

Day 4 - Glowing with anticipation

I finally manage to get a good nights sleep and feel a little more human, although I’m still slightly on edge. I have a basic breakfast of cereal bars and fruit in the hostel dining area. Before making my way to the coach pickup point, which was moved thanks to the downtown fire (see my previous post in this series for more context). This made things a bit hectic and my tour driver, Rachel, was noticeably stressed out. It didn’t help that passengers were putting there bags in the hold without the driver having a chance to note who put on what and where they were getting off. This wasn’t the only issue though as apparently Rachel’s regular coach had broken down that morning and the microphone wasn’t working as intended. She really wasn’t having a good day but was still polite and calm once we were on our way.

I didn’t notice much of the scenery other than the large amount of green pastures on an overcast day. I have a brief nap and wake up with about 20 miles to go before reaching my destination at the Black Water Rafting company. Yes I had booked for a day of tubing through the Waitomo Glowworm Caves.

I check in quickly and prepare myself both mentally and physically with another cereal bar to keep my energy levels steady. Our caving instructors greet the group of us, eight in total, to walk us down to the changing area. The instructor who picked out my wet suit was called Zeus and he definitely had the beard to be a god although not quite the body. I strapped on my already wet suit, had my photo taken with the group and was packed into a van to take me to the caves.

On the ride over I get talking to Paul and Cameron. Paul had been on this expedition 20 years ago and was warning us that there was a point where the instructors try to trick you into diving underneath to get to another section, but surprise surprise there is no way over to that other side. Cameron was a software developer who had moved to NZ from Seattle, as a Kiwi by blood but brought up in the Pacific Northwest we bonded over our nerdy tech jobs. Turns out Cameron was actually on sabbatical and was nearly finished writing a Sci-fi novel, I forgot to ask for the title of it but I’m sure that it will be a bestseller in no time.

Leaving the van we arrive at a small stream and are told that are going to jump in with our rubber rings attached to our buttocks in order to prepare for jumping down a waterfall later on… It was bloody freezing! With boots filled with water and adrenaline fully pumping we head to the caves.

Clambering through the entrance, it’s slippy, cold and dark, ducking under stalactites and gripping onto rocks we make it through to a section with a higher ceiling. We’re told to sit down on either side and turn our headlights off. My eyes adjust and twinkling above in a blue/green hue are thousands of little glowworms. I’m then informed that they aren’t actually worms, they are maggots, but glow-maggots doesn’t sound quite as appealing to the unaware tourist 😉

Going through rapids, leaping from waterfalls and descending down rock faces we’re led to safety by our fellow mortal instructor Zeus. A quick check to see if we have everybody we get back for some rather awkward wet suit removal, a shower and a hot soup and bagels.

I get the shuttle bus up to the main Waitomo caves entrance, and decide to explore whilst I have an hour and a half until I get picked up and I stumble upon a short trail with a viewpoint of the local area. A nice surprise to the first day where I truly felt happy with my choice to explore New Zealand on my own for 5 weeks. My coach arrives, we watch the first hobbit film on the way back to Auckland, another pleasant activity to end my day.

day 5 - Getting to know New Zealand

Waking up early again I feel almost 100% normal. I arrive at the coach pickup point and I find that I have the same coach driver as yesterday. I walk on to the bus with the 3 other passengers with a podcast at the ready when Rachel starts to point out facts about the view. At first, I think this is just a bit of idle chat to start the journey but as it continues to progress it turns out that this is actually a fully guided tour as we go all the way up to the Bay of Islands filled with facts from the economy of NZ, local flora and fauna and the society which is living in this beautiful country. My favourite fact was the cause of the “micro-terracing” that is found throughout on all the hills in these lands. I’ll leave a photo below of this effect and I’ll let you guess what the answer is to this strange phenomena with the answer being in the next blog post.

Our coach arrives at Paihia and we get our tickets for the boat tour, but I’ve also booked onto a tour of the Waitangi Treaty grounds and I’m the only one to book onto it, so I get a private ride over with Rachel saying that usually she won’t give her opinion on the agreement but this time as it’s only me she’ll discuss it after I’ve had the tour, as not to colour my opinion until I’ve heard the museums side.

For context the Waitangi Treaty is the agreement that the western colonisers and the native Maori came to about the division of land and compensation for the past. The treaty has been revised many times over the years usually fairing more on the side of the Maori with each change in order to make up for the treatment they had received in the past.

I quickly walk through the museum, most notably viewing the differences between how westerners and the Maori viewed land ownership conceptually. Westerners generally considering land as owned by individuals and traded between from the individuals, whilst the Maori view land as being owned by the local leader of the tribe and passed out to individuals for use but ultimately the land is always owned by the leader, much like leased land. You can imagine how this would make any agreement difficult.

I have an great tour guide around the grounds, very knowledgeable about the Maori as a descendent of one the original signers of the agreement and a good sense of humour, often referencing how the Colonel and the golden arches came to bring a delicious meat based diet to the Maori. We see the ceremonial waka, made from 3 huge Kauri trees and over two years of craftsmanship, and then follow up to the peak of the grounds with the flag pole with the New Zealand flag, the original sailing icon and, perhaps controversially, the Great British flag. When asked about it the guide was very tactful and said that “what’s in the past is in the past and we should concentrate on the problems we have today and move forward”.

At this point, I’d like to say that I don’t really think I’m entitled to an opinion with regards to the political situation in New Zealand and that I’m going to try to write the opinions of others without adding my own interpretation to the best of my ability.

I get back to the coach and I repeat this to Rachel and she said that most Maori probably think similarly but others are still overly bitter about what has happened in the past. Each year there is a celebration of the treaty at the grounds and according to Rachel it’s only about 20% non-Maori when it is supposed to be celebrating the bringing together of these peoples. From hearing Rachel’s opinions I get to see that the racial divides are not simple shouldn’t be treated with simple solutions. The one thing we agreed on though is that poverty was the root cause of a lot of this and any policies should made to help people regardless of race.

We arrive back in Paihia and I get onto the boat that will cruise around this pristine blue bay. I get a good seat on the top floor and enjoy the ride. Scenic views a plenty, this tour went through the bay of islands and up to but not through the “hole in the rock”. Dolphins sighting were supposed to be common on this tour but it was not to be and even more disappointingly the lunch I had booked wasn’t on ship. Luckily I had planned for this and chowed down on a big bag of crisps but overall it put a dampener on the tour. At least it didn’t cost that much.

We get on the coach home and there is no commentary. I’ve had my fill learning about the beating heart of this nation for one day so I listen to some podcasts about Fantasy Football and the NFL. I get chance to reflect on what I’ve done over the last two days and things are really looking up. I didn’t know what to expect from these travels but I realise I really am learning more about myself and about others as well. I arrive back with enough time to work on my first blog post and with that I will end this one.