New Zealand Part 1 : June 13 - 24
Rotorua : Thursday June 15, 2006
New Zealand is the extreme sports capital of the world and today we were introduced to our first one. We were heading for Rotorua, located in the central part of the northern island. This small city (app. 30,000 people) is smack dab in the center of a huge geothermal area. It is famous for its spas, extreme sports and Maori culture. The drive down from Auckland took about 3.5 hours in the rain. We were taking our time however and were meandering around some of the back roads just admiring the beautiful countryside.
Shortly after noon, we spotted the famous Lake Rotorua and began to see evidence of just how geothermally active this place is. We could see the steam rising from miles away. About 8 km outside of town we reached our first destination of the day. There on a big sign pointing to the left were the words “ Zorbing Center: 50 m ß”. This sport involves a large plastic sphere filled with air where the inside is hollowed out for the “zorbonaut” to sit. The ball is transferred to the top of a high hill (hopefully absent of too many trees) where the zorbonaut climbs in. The rider becomes the equivalent of a human hamster as he rolls down the hill in a rather uncontrolled manner.
This location was where zorbing was invented and they offered two kinds of zorbing: wet and dry. Deb and Sierra opted out, figuring this was insane. Why would anybody want to engage in a vomit inducing, gravity controlled activity? Debbie was already suffering from motion sickness from the morning’s twisty roads and didn’t need to add to it. Brennan however was definitely pumped and wanted to do both the wet and dry option. Brian opted to do the wet option alongside Brennan.
Brennan, along with his fellow zorbonauts was taken up in a truck to the top of the hill. Brennan was last in line as there was a big adventure race being held by the region’s military units and this was one of the events. (They did the same thing here for the Amazing Race 4 which gave them a huge boost in sales). At any rate it was finally Brennan’s turn. Getting into the center of the ball is a tricky piece of business. Once inside for the dry version, Brennan was strapped up spread eagle and let loose (totally uncontrolled) down the hill. He bounced, he spun and he got air. He did not vomit! He emerged from the ball at the bottom of the hill dizzy, disoriented and extremely happy. He first words were “I now know how a sock in the dryer feels”. We managed to get some great photos and video of the trip down.
It was now time for ride two, the wet option. Both Brian and Brennan were doing this one. It is a little different as they put two people into the ball, along with a bunch of water. You aren’t strapped in during this run either. To enter the ball, the rider has to run and slide in head first into a tiny hole. The object is to see how long you can stand on your feet and try to run down the hill as the ball spins rapidly. It turns out you can’t stand on your feet for too long. It only took 3 feet until Brian and Brennan had totally collapsed and were being bounced and sloshed around in the inside of zorb. It was total chaos, with arms and legs everywhere. This time, Brennan and Brian were poured out of the zorb when they got to the bottom. Brennan said “Now I know how the sock feels in the washer as well. I’ve been through the whole cycle!” For the spectators, it looked like the riders were being born as they slid out, soaking wet.
With extreme sport number one now behind us, we climbed back into the car and headed off to find our hotel for the next couple of nights. The first thing we noticed about our drive through the center of town was that this place really was built right on top of a huge geothermal field. The park in the center of town was steaming with all the hot springs and boiling mud pots. Even the sewers had steam pouring out of them! We stayed at the “Regal Palms” which was a terrific place. We booked a two room family unit with kitchenette for under $100 USD per night. It came with it own 4 person Jacuzzi in the bathroom instead of a tub. We had to fill it up every time we used it showing us that this place does not have a shortage of hot water. After a round of mini golf that also came with the hotel (Brian won because Debbie didn’t play.), we headed off to see some of the town before it got dark.
We returned to the central district and spent the next hour or so exploring the different mud pools, steam vents, and hot springs that were bubbling away. They were all fenced off, but we had to wonder. With all this bubbling and percolating going on, just how long until the whole town just goes Boom??. Everybody seems to acknowledge the eventuality/inevitability of the event but until it happens they seems content with all the free hot water. The last big volcanic explosion in the region occurred in 1886 when Mt. Tarawera went up and buried several of the local towns (much like Pompeii). We had seen activity like this before in Yellowstone, just not in the middle of town!
After our hiking, we were ready to start thinking about dinner. We had heard lots about a small pizza restaurant called “Hell”. The pizza was some of the best we have had on the trip (and we have had a lot of pizza!). It had been a very busy day, and tomorrow promises to be just as busy. After a super hot, hot tub we collapsed into our beds and were immediately asleep.
Friday, June 16, 2006: Rotorua, New Zealand
We woke up to rain which was not too unusual for New Zealand. After a sumptuous breakfast of granola bars and yoghurt we were off. Ten minutes down the road from our hotel was Te Puia which was a combination Maori Cultural Center and Thermal Hot Spring region. Entry was about $60 NZD or 36 USD for the family. This was certainly worth the investment. The original name for this valley was TE WHAKAREWAREWATANGAOTEOPETAUAAWAHIAO or The Gathering Place for the War Parties of Wahaio. Our first introduction to the Maori traditions was watching our native guide demonstrate how to make the traditional skirts and rope using the native flax leaves. After peeling back the waterproof skin on the leaves, the fibers are rolled together along the leg to make fiber twine. The small tubes on the skirts were formed naturally when they curled after a couple of days out in the sun. Hundred of these dried leaves are used to make the traditional skirts and capes. Traditionally Maori craftsmen used long sharp edged mussel shells to cut the flax.
Following the flax demonstration, we were taken to the central square where our guide introduced us to the houses and carving traditions of the Maori people. As the Maori did not have any written language they used pictograms and oral traditions such as story telling to preserve their history. The homes and meeting houses were all made out of large timbers and covered with carvings and totems detailing the tribes’ history. The similarity to the Pacific Indian and their totem traditions was amazing! From the central square we made our way down the park towards the wood carvers’ facility where the master artists were training the next generation of carvers. They used traditional style which meant that the figures were usually large and ugly. This is a pre-European influence during which time they felt it would offend the gods to make figures in a near perfect likeness to the original. As a result, the figures typically had grotesquely large heads and features and only had 4 fingers on their hands. (The 4 fingers stood for birth, life, death and the hereafter).
After watching the carvers for a while, we headed out to the Kiwi house (the birds not the people). The park is a registered breeding center for these endangered birds and it was our first look at these nocturnal creatures. Sierra fell in love with them immediately indicating that feathery was almost as good as fuzzy (fur). The guide explained to us that prior to the arrival of the Europeans, there were no land based animals on the islands except for insects, amphibians (frogs etc.) and birds. No snakes, no mammals nothing. The introduction of pigs, deer, cats, dogs, ferrets and weasels for hunting have created havoc with the local environmental balance. The kiwis are flightless and have little defenses against any of the larger predators such as weasels or dogs.
Having finished with the cultural program (at least for now), we headed down to the thermal fields. We saw hundreds of steam beds and mud pots, but the highlight was the Pohutu Geyser. This geyser erupts 1-2 times per hour and shoots up to 30 meters in the air with an exceptional amount of steam (especially during cold days like today). This is the largest and most predictable natural geyser in the valley. After 15 minutes of watching geyser eruptions sitting on the naturally heated rocks (very nice) we headed off down the trail and began to work our way back up to the fortified central square or Rotowhio Marae. Every day, the park features a midday concert (12:15).
Just prior to the welcome ceremony however we had to move towards the outer courtyard gate. Brian failed to watch where he was going and ran smack into the wooden roof pole, cutting his head. This was only the first in a series of injuries we could expect from Brian over the next couple of days! Once we were formally welcomed inside the compound, the staff members dressed in traditional skirts and holding traditional weapons began the dance segment of the program. This included the Tititorea (a stick throwing game/dance), the Poi dance where the ladies twirled bolos around at incredible speeds and the famous Haka dance performed by the males of the troupe. The Haka is arguably the most famous of the Maori dances and was used to frighten their enemies into submission and avoid fighting if possible. It involved the bulging of eyes, pounding of chests, stomping of feet and sticking out of tongues. As an interesting note the national Rugby team called The All Blacks, perform the Haka at the opening of each match. We saw it on television the other day during a match against Ireland.
After the dance portion of the tour we headed back out to the car. Next up was a tour into the local countryside to the Geothermal Park of Hell’s Gate, located approximately 20 km outside of town. While it offers walks through their geothermal region, it is most famous as a Mud Spa which Deb and Sierra wanted to visit. Right next to the Hell’s Gate facility was the main office of the Kaitaiaki Company which specialized in river rafting and sledging experiences. This was one of the “must do” elements on Brian’s secret New Zealand list that he had kept for himself and Brennan. With reservations made for the next day’s outings, we headed back into town. After a late lunch at Subway, we made our way back out towards the zorbing location on the north side of town. We were rushing to make the 2:30 sheep show at the Agrodome. Deb and Sierra had heard good things about the show and were very interested to see it. Brian and Brennan thought that sitting in the car reading would be more appealing than watching sheep being sheared and opted out from the show. Turns out the show lived up to its hype and Sierra and Deb had a great time learning about sheep. At one point Sierra was up on stage again, feeding baby lambs and looking over the 19 different breeds of sheep that had been introduced. The show ended outside with a dog show demonstrating how the dogs are used to muster and herd the sheep. These are incredibly intelligent animals (the dogs not the sheep). As we are looking to get a dog of some sort when we get back the kids were most interested in watching.
After a long day it was time to go back to the apartment. While the rain had held off for the most part of the day, the skies opened up and it began to pour once we arrived back at the hotel. Dinner was a fabulous meal of take away Thai food. After catching a movie on the Sky Vision TV, we headed off to bed. Tomorrow we Sledge / Mud.
Saturday, June 17, 2006: Rotorua, New Zealand
Today the boys were going one way and the girls the other. It was raining still but that didn’t bother anybody. The girls were off to the mud baths and the spa for the morning followed by some shopping in town for the afternoon. The boys were heading for Extreme Sport event number 2 which was sledging. Sledging was developed in the 80’s along the French / Swiss Alps. Its inventors quickly decided the Europeans weren’t ready to embrace this somewhat insane sport so they headed off to the land of the Kiwis to make it a commercial enterprise. It involves shooting river rapids armed with a wet suit, a helmet, some shorty flippers and a small 3 foot long plastic sled. Brian had heard about this before it began to appear on TV shows and had been keen on trying it for some time. Brennan wasn’t really sure what he was getting into.
Brian on Sledging:
The adventure really started as we hopped into the vehicle and the driver needed to know Brennan’s age. Brian had already prepped Brennan that he was “15” for the day which was the minimum age limit for the trip. Turned out that the regular rivers were shut down for a couple of weeks for some environmental studies, soday we were going to be running the most extreme of the available rivers in the area. The Rangataiki River is a class 4/5 river and is typically only run a couple of times a year. Because of its difficulty, the minimum age for this river was 16 years old. They would let a “15” year old through if the parent signed off several warning sheets. Never mind that Brennan is really only 14, Brian did not hesitate to sign him up and watched as Brennan began to turn a slightly off colour shade of green.
The group was made up of 7 customers + 3 guides + 1 kayaker/photographer. After changing into our wet water gear in a small hotel in the town of Murupara, we headed up to the drop in. After some dry land training on how to turn and roll your sledge, we were given a basic run down of the river. Unlike other rivers that typically had a drop then a pool then a drop then a pool, we were going to be faced with rapids that stretched to 1 km in length. That meant it was critical that we had to hang onto the sledge. Because of the time of year and all the rain, the river was going to be bigger than normal and we were told to expect 2-3 meter high standing waves in places. The fear and intimidation factors were working as the customers were looking more and more unsure about getting wet. The fact that the temperatures were only 1-2 C also added to the questionable sanity of the exercise. Our concerns were further amplified with the guides (all Maori) prepared their traditional Maori river prayer for safe passage. It was a beautiful prayer but it made us wonder what we were getting into.
Once in the water, Brennan did great. We practiced ferrying across the river, turning and doing rolls in the slow moving current. Then we took on the small grade 2 rapid. It was only 100-200 m long and was a breeze. This stuff was easy.
Right… The second set of rapids was rated as 3-4 in nature. This meant big waves and lots of current and rocks. They particularly warned us about “Rock A” and how it had a large pillow of water spilling off it. We had to bank off the pillow and head down the left side of the river. When they screamed left we had to head left or miss our rest spot. The waves here were easily 2 meters in height and it was a 4-500 meter long run. We all managed to make it through to the bottom however and quickly realized that this was not at all like the first set of rapids. As the guides said, “This is no Disneyland ride”.
The guides then called us all together for a quick huddle up. They informed us that the next set of rapids was the biggest of the day. These were grade 4-5 waters for up to 1 km. We could expect waves up to 3 meters and it was critical that we did exactly as they told us. They walked us through what we were to expect and advised us that when we heard the whistle blow we were entering “the seriously deep shit!” and we had better paddle for our lives. After 3 monster waves, the river was going to fork with a strong dog leg to the left and a stronger current pulling us to the right. Right was the water fall. We didn’t want to go that way. This meant that after hitting the first wave we had to line up successfully for the left branch. After the second monster wave we had to start kicking our brains out. If the third wave kicked us to the right we would be in for a nasty ride. Going over the falls wasn’t deadly they said, but you had to make sure you went in vertical and dive to the bottom. Otherwise you would get caught in the turbulence until somebody else kicked you out.
On top of it all, our group was thinned down considerably. Between some of the customers opting to walk around the rapids, and the guides “kicking out” the poorer sledgers our group was down to 3-4 people (+ the three guides). Both Brennan and Brian were deemed “sufficiently proficient” though from the look on Brennan’s face I’m sure that he would have been pleased to have been punted out. I have never seen him so scared. When we headed out into the water he was right on the guide’s flippers. If he was going to do this, he was going to stay pretty close to the guide.
Right before we took off, the head guide called me aside and made a few suggestions. “You and your son are naturals in this stuff, but this is the really, really serious shit now. We need you to forget about your son for the next kilometer. You have to let us look after him. Believe me when I say that you won’t have time to think about anything other than your own survival. If he heads down the waterfall rest assured one of us will be going over with him.” And on that cheery note, I pushed out into the current. Thank God that Debbie was in the mud bath!
We were quickly in the current, hitting waves bigger than I thought possible. I have never seen anything so extreme (granted this was all seen from water level which changes the perspective considerably). I kept thinking that I had missed the whistle and had already come through. Then I heard the whistle and really got worried. I could barely see Brennan up ahead and then I hit the first big wave. It was twice the size of the van we drove out in. I kept up the mantra “Hold onto the board. Kick left. Stay left. Hold onto the board …!” By the time I hit the second wave I was turned left and thought I might have a chance. The wave was bigger than the first and it rolled me over, slamming my cheek into the sledge. I managed to get righted and luckily still faced left when I hit the third wave. Somehow I managed to get into the left branch but by this time I couldn’t see anybody. Once in the left branch the waves got even bigger. The last stretch of the rapid drops 3.5 stories in a little under 100 meters. They say it takes less than 12 seconds to traverse this section. It felt like a year. As we eddied out into a pool at the bottom, I realized two things. Brennan was okay and somewhere along the line I had seriously banged my left thigh. The adrenaline was still surging when Brennan and the lead guide made their way over to me. Everybody was pretty pumped, with the guides commenting on how huge the water was today. Brennan was all smiles until he saw the blood on my face. Somehow I had cut myself above my right eye and was bleeding into the river. At least I didn’t have to worry about sharks!
All around us was chaos. Three of us managed to hang onto the sledges. One client lost hers, and one guide had bailed off his to swim down with the struggling client. It took some time to get re-organized. We also lost one of the sledgers as he refused to go any further down the river. He opted for the walk out at this point.
The rest of the river was a blur of rapids (ranging from 300m to1km in length). These were an absolute blast. At one point Brian came around a corner to find Brennan sandwiched in between two other sledgers all hung up on a big rock. Brian did the only thing he could and just sledged right up and over the three of them muttering apologies along the way.
After reaching our take out some kilometers further down stream, the guides ended our day with a song to the river gods. It seemed appropriate they said to start with a prayer and end with a song. We hopped into the van and headed down to the hotel to change and to grab a quick bite to eat. Then it was back into the van for the 1 hour ride into town. We had survived the extreme sporting event number two with only some bruising and a black eye. Let’s hope they don’t get any more exciting! I don’t know if we could handle it. Truth to tell though both of us would jump at the chance to do sledging again!
Once back in town we met up with the girls. We had a quiet evening watching the All Blacks take on Ireland in the big rugby match. The girls had a great day spending money and rolling in the mud. Tomorrow should be a considerably tamer day!
Sierra on her muddy day:
Today was a good day as I had my first spa treatment. Mom and I had a private mud pool and sulfur pool. The mud felt really good and odd between my toes. I could have spent hours with the mud. I can’t believe that mom actually let me play with mud! After the mud bath, we had to take a super cold shower to “close our pores”. It was freezing!!!!! Next was the sulfur pool and it was smelly but nice. It was very hot and I couldn’t stay in too long. I wish we had the extra time in the mud pool. I would go back in a flash. I am so glad I did that instead of the sledging. It was a “hell” of a day because the spa was called Hell’s Gate and later we ate pizza at the Hell Restaurant in Rotorua.
Sunday, June 18, 2006: Rotorua, New Zealand
As Brian woke up this morning he realized two things. He couldn’t move his left leg, and according to Deb and the kids, he was sporting a really big black eye. Much to the kids delight, he limped his way around the room. After a power breakfast that consisted mainly of Ibuprofen on Brian’s part, we were out in the car and ready to go. It was a good thing it was my left leg that was injured otherwise Brian would have had to let Deb do the driving today. We were heading to Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland, located around 30 km south of the city. This was another of the many geothermal parks in the area. After parking the car and hobbling up to the ticket counter at the main entrance, the cashier advised us that we would have to hurry back to the car and drive to the other parking lot in order to catch the 10:15 eruption of Lady Knox Geyser, the most famous in the park. Quick and Brian seemed to be pretty mutually exclusive this morning. The kids got a big thrill teasing him and making fun of his distress. What kind of kids have we been raising??? We made it back to the car and rushed about half a kilometer down the road to the geyser parking lot. With Brian looking like Frankenstein running along behind, we pulled up just as the show was about to start.
The local guide was explaining how a group of early Europeans from the area’s first prison camp were washing their clothes in what was then a thermal hot pool when it suddenly erupted throwing their clothes 40 meters into the air. It turns out that the dynamics of the pool and the thermal tank underneath are in balance such that when soap is added, the viscosity of the water and the thermal tension of the water are reduced past a critical point, and the eruption occurs. After years and years of soap stimulated eruptions it has become a full fledged geyser, though they still stimulate it to erupt on cue with the addition of a bar of soap. A little hokey we admit, but the results were pretty cool.
After the geyser, we worked our way back to the main entrance and made our way around the 6.5 km of trails that wound through the park. There were hundreds of different geothermal features to see. It was very different than the other fields in that there was much more color in the water and in the craters. We knew that the yellow colors were from sulphur and the reds from iron oxide. These sites however contained yellow green lakes of colloidal sulphur and ferrous salts, orange coloured antimony formations and purple deposits made from manganese oxide. It took about 2 hours to limp our way around the park.
Returning to the city we took a small detour to visit the “ Volcanic Valley”. The valley used to contain several Maori villages and the world famous “Pink Terraces” (a geothermal formation of terraces of pink and white silicates). When Mt. Tarawera blew up in 1886, it was twice as big an explosion as Mt. St. Helens. Its ash and lava covered the towns and it formed a new lake and valley. The hillsides around this area are now incredibly steep and green and are covered with sheep. This makes for amazing scenery and a lot of photo opportunities. Though you can take a paddle wheel boat tour out onto the lake to get a closer view of the volcano, we had had enough geothermal viewing and opted out. We returned to the hotel for a bite of lunch and a chance to get caught up on our journaling and homework! Tomorrow we leave Rotorua and make our way west to the Waitomo caves for their famous glow worms and black water rafting!( NEXT PAGE )