Rangitikei

Well I had typed up a whole post on Rotorua, but it magically deleted itself from my iPad, so I'll just sum it up and press on to the more memorable, more recent bits.

Here's the Cliff's Notes to my Rotorua trip:

- The entire city smells like rotten eggs, thanks to volcanic hot springs all throughout the area

- Despite the smell, the town is beautiful and scenic, which has turned into something of a theme for New Zealand thus far

- Went Zorbing. A zorb is a giant hamster ball for humans, and is a ton of fun. Expensive, but I felt like I just had to do it because I was there. Totally awesome. On a side note, if anyone is looking for a professional zorb racer for-hire, shoot me an email. If I ever get back to a place with broadband Internet, I'll upload a video of me absolutely smoking my competition in a downhill zorb race.

Zorbs on the hill, ready for racing.

Taihape:

After one day in Rotorua, we piled back on a bus and headed off for Taihape. Now, on my grand list of places to go in New Zealand that I researched well beforehand, Taihape appeared exactly no times. You see, Taihape is a town of about 2,000 people on the road between Lake Taupo and Wellington. The intercity bus stops next door to the library, which does triple duty as the town hall and community theater.

Why this town? That's thanks to my travel buddies, Tim and Blake, who you may remember from my illustrious hitchhiking debut. Whitewater rafting was on their list of New Zealand must-do's, and in their research they had discovered that the Rangitikei River outside of Taihape featured the most formidable and exciting Grade 5 rapids in NZ. They found a place called the River Lodge, and were planning on using their services for the rafting trip.

We'd made it a goal to not plan anything more than 24 hours in advance, be that hostels, activities, transportation, or even location. Our plan for this trip was to buy tickets to Taihape, and catch a local bus out to this River Lodge. Imagine our surprise when we called in to book our accommodation, and were informed that: a) Taihape has no bus system, and b) the lodge is located a 40 minute drive outside of town. Fortunately, they were able to send out a shuttle to pick us up.

The following is a set of 4 pictures I took, 2 of which from a moving vehicle, on the way from Lake Taupo to Rangitikei Gorge:

I mean, come on. That's not even fair.

It just so happened that since it's barely springtime in New Zealand, we were the only people staying at the River Lodge that night. The staff had all gone home, and it was pretty fantastic to just have a quiet hall to ourselves to drink and play cribbage.

After a long night of one too many bottles of wine and a fight involving giant Jenga blocks, we woke up at 7:30am (or half seven as the UK folk I've met like to call it) for our day on the river.

Holy cow. The rapids were incredible and it was an absolutely stunning day, the best since I've been here by far. Blue skies as far as the eye could see, and hardly a cloud on the horizon. Of course, that was also the day that I was squeezed into a wetsuit and camera-less, so you'll all have to use the ol' imagination on that one. The river runs clear, and the water is freezing cold but pure enough that you can reach out of the raft and drink it as you paddle. The gorge on either side is steep and sheer, with beautiful rock formations and ledges carved into it by the path of the river. Countless waterfalls, huge boulders, just absolutely stunning. I can honestly say I've never seen more natural beauty in one place.

After the rafting, we all passed out and slept for most of the most beautiful day I've had in New Zealand, which is totally fitting if you know me. Once we woke up though, we decided to take a quick 20 minute hike away from the lodge, where we'd been told we could see another waterfall, though the trail was a bit dodgy.

"Trail"

Again, having seen the gorge all day on the raft, I didn't think I could be surprised again. But then:

Honestly, the pictures don't even do it justice. I felt like I was in the movie Up.

I'll backtrack a little, since I skipped a pretty important bit. Since we were the only ones staying in the lodge that night, we were also the only ones rafting. this meant that instead of one guide with us, we had three, including the people who run the place. While we were rafting, we talked with the guides, and I may have off-handedly made a remark about how I wish I could see this every day, or something along those lines, and one of them mentioned their "slave program."

 

[Sidebar here: it's pretty amazing to me how different and less historically charged the word "slave" is here. They really think nothing of it, and consider it a decent word to use on people. Considering slavery doesn't heavily factor into their history, I guess it makes sense. Just a moment of culture shock for me.]

In the program, they look for travelers looking to save a bit of money and spend a bit of time exploring Rangitikei. The position entails 5-6 hours a day of work around the lodge, ranging from arranging rooms to cleaning bathrooms, from starting the fireplace to washing dishes. In exchange, volunteers get free lodging, 3 meals a day, free (slow)wifi, free laundry services, and reduced bar prices. Generally the program is run during the summer, but since spring has sprung and the pace of visits is starting to pick up, they were looking for one person to help out, minimum 2 week commitment.

As you can probably tell by the fact that I'm writing this much about it, I took the opportunity and will be staying at River Lodge for the next two weeks, working in paradise. The spirit of this trip has been about doing things I would ordinarily never do, and this is definitely one of those times. This place, this life, is the polar opposite of almost everything about my life in the states. What better way to unwind and let go? 

I said goodbye to Tim and Blake as they continued on to meet up with their friends in Christchurch, and for the last 2 days I've been working my tail off but loving every minute of it. I'll write up a post sometime this weekend about all the chores I'm doing (hoping this is habit forming) and all of the wonderful Kiwis I'm getting to know around here. I'm definitely getting the true New Zealand experience this trip.

Cheers,

Jared