I’ve been dealing with some issues with bug bites and allergic reactions, as well as sickness, so I apologize for the delay in entry since last week. Today’s entry is going to be a bit different as well: I wanted to take at least one entry now and then just to recap some of the adventures that I’ve been having. Obviously, I have a great interest in the history and culture of these places that I visit, and I hope you enjoy me talking about those things, but I also wanted to take time to highlight some of the things I’ve done out here, to give you an idea of what I’ve been up to. How I enjoy myself. What kind of things one does when one travels.
New Zealand is a good place to spend a lot of money on adventures. That’s what I’ve learned from being here. Before I arrived here, I was safely on budget, riding along at around $50 a day, careful not to spend too much anywhere, looking for bargains, and I was on a good track. Now, things have basically descended into financial madness. But it is so hard, you have to understand, to stop yourself from dumping another couple hundred dollars on these tours, because it seems like each one just gets better than the last. Tomorrow, for example, I’m going on a helicopter hike. This is where we’re flown to the top of a glacier, and then hike into the glacier, where there are hot springs to relax in. The only thing required to make tomorrow into a James Bond movie would be guns and a sexy…car.
Anyway, several weeks ago this all began. I started off in Paihia, at the Northern tip of the Northern island, where I took a tour to Cape Reinga and wrote about death in the Maori culture (which I know you read). I also went kayaking in that area, known as the Bay of Islands, and the day was a bit windy, but it felt good to get my muscles moving and poke around the islands. Then I went to Thames.
In Thames I stayed with a wonderful family who took me in as one of their own. The woman of the family was so kind and attentive that when she dropped me off on my canyoning trip, the guide thought she was my mother! Sorry mom, but it looks like you have competition.
Near Thames is a beautiful area known as Sleeping God Canyon, and there I was introduced to canyoning, a form of extreme hiking in which you wear a wetsuit to guard against the frigid temperatures of the water, and you abseil, zip-line, slide down slick rocks like a natural waterslide, or just jump (the tallest jump was over 30 feet) down the canyon until you reach sea level. Again, James Bond all over. I even told my fellow canyoners (who laughed for some reason) that I fully intended to assume the role of special operative for the day. What we were infiltrating I do not know, but we did a damn good job of it and that’s that. Highly recommended for anyone with an appetite for adventure and an eye for the beauty of nature. Try to make sure you get a good day of weather, though, because it can be quite cold up there (not that I noticed).
The following week I met up with a woman, Amber, whom I’d met in the Sleeping God, and we decided to pair up for another adventure, this time in Waitomo: The Lost World Tour, a 7 hour exercise in spelunking, or cave-diving, that followed a river as it wound its way underground to an exit about 5 kilometers away. This tour began with a 100m abseil straight down into the cave itself. Of course, by this time I was essentially a professional, and not too nervous about that height, but it was pretty surreal drifting down into that enormous place. Then we descended into the darkness, and for nearly the entire journey there was not a sliver of sunlight to be seen. At several moments we turned out headlamps off, looking for glowworms, and one was overcome by the immediate feeling that if something were to happen, we would never get out of here.
Clad in our wetsuits, we guided ourselves upriver by plunging into its waters and pulling ourselves along using the rocks to either side as handholds. At one point we climbed out of the water and up, to find an area of rock with a hole opening into the blackness below. “Jump,” our guide told us. Now, I’d just jumped 10m the week prior, but as I looked down into this hole, having no idea how far down it was or what waited below, my inner voice sought to slap me in the face. “What are you doing?” it asked nervously. Then the guide added another twist, just for fun I guess (his, of course, not mine): we’d all turn our headlamps off. So I was jumping in pitch darkness an unknown number of feet into, hopefully, water below. Obviously I had no reservations about this.
Of course it was an incredible rush, and, feeling the adrenaline surging, I decided to take the next challenge: climbing up an underground waterfall to jump into a pool about 3m down. This was a lot of fun. It was a great physical challenge, for one thing, because even though the handholds are very good, you can’t really see what you’re doing (because there’s water hitting your face), and it’s really hard to climb up (because there’s water hitting the rest of your body). I didn’t really think about it at the time, but it is strange to consider that as I was jumping down off the cliff above the waterfall into the water below, there was hundreds of feet of rock above me. Such a strange place to be.
Parallel to this adrenaline junkie adventure of blind jumps and climbing waterfalls was arguably one of the most peaceful and profound journeys of my life. At one point we walked through water about waist high, and the guide instructed us all to place our hands on the wall for guidance, and to turn our lights off. We were plunged instantly into the most perfect pitch black, except, of course, the glow worms. Like a night sky comprised of green stars, the glowworms stretched above us. Suddenly, little vents and offshoots of the cave network were made visible as trails of worms led in all directions. As the sounds of the river filled the cavern, I was filled with a sense of awe and wonder at this incredible sight, made possible by billions of years of evolution. These little creatures, sitting in patience to capture their prey, unaware of us entirely, but providing us with such a gift of beauty. And as my eyes adjusted more and more came into view, as well as a subtle greenish glow that reflected off the water underneath. I found myself looking for constellations among the tiny stars in this foreign sky.
After Waitomo, I spent some time in Rotorua, an area of intense geothermal activity, where I saw Hobbiton as I wrote, and also made a stop at Te Puia, where I saw a geyser and pits of boiling mud bubbling like some scene from hell. Then I headed South and took on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a 20km hike through a scenic mountain pass between two volcanos. Along the way, me and a buddy I’d just met, Mike, hiked up to the summit of Mount Ngauruhoe, which you may know as Mount Doom from The Lord of the Rings. That was challenging to say the least, and a reminder that I need to do more cardio, but it was honestly a lot of fun, and the views from the top were absolutely beautiful. For an adrenaline rush, I recommend running down a volcano with a 35-degree slope.
Maybe some of you are curious why I’d do this. After all, if you slip, at that point, you’re probably not going to stop falling, at least not for awhile. But there is a concept called the deep now that is experienced in many extreme sports, where you enter a hyper-focused mental state and what’s known as your brain’s default mode network shuts down. What this means is that you are concentrating so intensely on the rocks in front of you, choosing where to place your feet so that you don’t die, that for a blessed minute that neverending chatter in your head just shuts up. The past and the future vanish like ghosts, and you are here, fully. It is an amazing feeling, and well worth the risk of life-altering bodily injury. Well, maybe I shouldn’t take it so lightly as that, but things ended up alright, so I have no regrets about it.
It was the first time in a long time, though, where I worked myself to such an extent that I vomited afterward. I’m telling you, if you keep the pace high, that hike is no joke.
It was at this point that I encountered my first big setback so far this trip, as I was assaulted by some kind of bug, or rather a large group of the conniving bastards. As people who are friends with me on Facebook will agree, my arms and legs looked like those of, I’d imagine, someone with the bubonic plague, and I felt like someone turning into the undead. The worst part, though, was not any sort of pain, but unrelenting itching. Itchiness is, as you all know, the most maddening sensation. And I tried to stay mindful of it, and just work my way through, but it is impossible. Itching seems designed to drive us to insanity, and I really wonder what kind of problem there was in our primitive past that required us to evolve this sense of urgency around it. Pain I understand. Pain is a command to stop what you’re doing right now because you might cause further injury and we need to evaluate what just happened and try to repair. But itching? What, what there some problem where people’s scabs would never come off, and everyone was dying of hypo-scabnemia? Was there a population of people who, through not itching their mosquito bites, died of some disease? Is that disease now killing me, because I refuse to itch my mosquito bites? Oh god! Okay, I’m really doing this for health reasons…itch itch itch.
Maybe you think I’m going on too long about this, but it’s just really something else. It’s as if our whole body is just throwing the most impetuous fit. “Itch me now! Itch me now, damn you! There’s no time for sleep!” There’s just no reasoning with it, and so we’re left scratching, knowing that it will just lead to more itching, if not infection or worse.
Luckily, I made it through, though not without considerable demoralization. In fact, I’m just now reaching the point where I can behave like a mostly sane person, though I do still have a few scabs healing on my right ankle and some itchy spots on my left knee and arms. So fair warning: buy bug spray before you head to Tongariro.
What did you think of this entry? Would you like to see more entries like this? More history, more culture? Let me know! Contact me or post a comment below. Thanks for reading.