Black and White and Green All Over – New Zealand 2007

Well, I have fallen way behind in keeping the blog. To keep me from being entirely ashamed, I’m adding material I wrote in 2007 on our return from New Zealand. We have many pix that I will eventually add here.

Nov, 2007

I’m gazing down at the Tasman Sea from the Air New Zealand 737 taking us from Queenstown to Auckland for our return flight to the U.S. We’ve had three awesome weeks on the North and South Island and enjoyed an incredible variety of activities.

Our overwhelming impressions are how young this country is–in geologic age, human history and travel appeal. The islands are scraps left over from Gondwana – that prehistoric mega continent that every kid knew existed even before the scientists confirmed that South America did indeed split off like a jigsaw piece from the coast of Africa. The mountains are tall and raw, early in the process of wind and water ‘s breakdown. Even the earliest settlers, the Maori, came here just 600 years back and can name the pilots of their migratory canoes. Europeans starting sniffing around in the 1600’s, but didn’t make much impact until the mid 18th Century when tentative trading began. And as far as the crowd that these islands attracts nowadays, it’s dramatically tilted towards the college age nature lovers and adventure seekers.

Another foolish way to view the place is to notice that all the domestic animals and not-so domesticated sports teams – come in black and white. Cows, sheep, sheep dogs, All Blacks, All Whites, Long Blacks. Even the most-ordered coffees are “flat white”, “short black”, “long black”. Only the Netball team dares call itself the Silver Ferns.

Distances are large here. It was easy to burn up 20 days driving north to South only. Roads are very good, but smallish, making for speeds more in the 40 mph range rather than 70. Towns don’t blur into one another; each has its own center and some space around it.

I can’t recount all of our travels; in three weeks of driving we saw and experienced so many things. But here are some of the most interesting to us, and hopefully to you our readers.

Blackwater Of Another Flavour

Boasting fantasmagorical limestone formations inhabited by glow-worms, Waitomo Caves seemed irrestible. The caves and their weird inhabitants are world renowed and included in 1000 Things to See Before You Die, which I consult regularly. Give us anything offbeat, goofy, creepy, especially unusual natural phenomena, and we’re on it. So the Glow Worm Caves were mandatory attendance . The only decision was what form our tour would take. The tamest tours put you in a walking group, or floating in a moderate size raft. For us, it had to be the Blackwater Abyss Tour. (not affiliated with Blackwater USA defense contracts – at least as far as we could tell. The instructor training might well be a bootcamp prerequisiite , especially suspicious give in that we did more belly-crawling and rapelling than I‘ve done in 10+ years! Sad to say, no one tried to recruit us during our adventure.)

Before our tour began, we had to suit up in wetsuits , helmets, and meatpackers’ boots, which are apparently the best suited for wading, climbing and floating in a cold river.

Guides Alan and Lucas gave us a short training run to acquaint ourselves with the rapelling gear we’d use to enter the caves. Both Fred and I have experience in rapelling, so this was just an introduction to a new braking device, known as a rack. It’s not a figure-eight device, but the theory is the same.

Once we’d gotten the hang of the rappell on some practice ropes, they escorted us to a platform that extends into a cave. Sure enough, there is an hourglass-shaped vertical tunnel , a drop of 35 meters to the landing area. One of the guides rapped down (fast!) and then one-by-one we stepped up to take our turn.

As soon as all the folks drifted down into the cave, they showed us the zip line that would take us to the next stop. The gag here is that they switch off all the helmet lights just before they release you onto the zip line. So you have the joy of hanging from your seat harness, headed off to some unseen landing zone in absolute blackness. Luckily, the trip is short, and the guides help you to land.

Now assembled on a rock ledge about 9 feet above the river, we are issued our next conveyance: good old fashioned black rubber innertubes. We were instructed to fit our bums into the center, jump off the rock and land in the river – bumfirst. You get submerged in the icy river and a bonus: a free cold water enema.

They’ve affixed guide ropes to a section of theunderground river, so that you can pull yourselves upstream to the bower of the glow worms. They’re permanent residents of the caves, feeding on newly hatched larvae. Each glow worm has a farm of sticky strings that hang from the ceiling. The worms’ glow attracts the baby larvae, who are programmed to fly upwards towards sky and stars. Well, rude surprise little larva, that star will be dining on you today.

Loud noises excite the worms and they glow brighter. We amused ourselves a bit yelling and watching them respond. After a bit more tubing, we pitched the inner tubes and just waded in the more shallow parts of the river.

The caves hold other curiosities. Some places where the limestone has eroded leaves formations that can resonate, So sing or hum and they will hum along with you. There are little passages that we were allowed to crawl through, and at least one headfirst slide.

The final exit was almost as dramatic as the entry: we climbed up rock formations where waterfalls flowed into the caves. Easy climbs if dry, it took some effort to counteract the rapid water flow. At last! Out of the cold water, into the light of day. Hot soup and bagels were the reward!

A memorable day and we felt good after the whole thing.