Caves, Beaches, and New Friends
Things I have learned in the last 28 days:
I need to have less things. Especially dresses. Why did I bring so many dresses?
My love for our gear (i.e. Backpacking Stove and Solar Charger) knows no bounds.
William will always want to choose the path that doesn’t totally look like a path. He likes forging his own way.
Running water is a luxury that should not be taken for granted ever again.
Anxiety will follow you across the world if you let it. You just find new things to feel anxious about.
I love farm animals. Will can I please, please, please have chickens when we get home?! And a cow? GOATS?!
I need relationships with other humans (whether new friends or old) to be happy.
William is one of the hardest workers I have ever met.
I should thank my parents 100 times for taking us outdoors so much as kids. I have good skills that not everyone has thanks to them.
A sunny day is worth more than almost anything else when you live on the road. Second only to the kindness of strangers, or a really good cheeseburger.
….And much more! We’ve only been in New Zealand for about four weeks now, but it feels like so much has happened! At the same time, it’s also flown by and it’s hard to believe so many of the things I planned for us months ago have already happened or are just around the corner. Before you know it we’ll be looking for work and an apartment, and trying not to run out of money. We try to savor moments even when the days get busy for this reason, and so appreciate the gift this experience is and how lucky we are to be able to do a trip like this.
Our last seven days have been jammed packed with adventures, amazing landscapes, and new friendships. The day after we left our last WWOOFing hosts, we made our way down (after a rest night with Grayson and David- thanks guys!) to the Waitomo area, known for their expansive caves filled with little bioluminescent bugs called Glow Worms. After suiting up in wet suits, we traveled with our guide and a few fellow amatuer cavers to the mouth of one of the longest cave systems on the North Island. One by one we repelled about 50 feet down into the cave. Once in the cave we could see the extent of (and feel!) the freezing cold river that ran through the cave. Our friendly guide took us caving, over ledges and through small holes that felt marginally safe at best. Eventually we grabbed some inner-tubes and rafted back down the cave river! The highlight, of course, was laying back on a rocky cave beach and seeing the glow worms wake up, as our guide made a racket to send vibrations through the wall. It was like looking up at an incredibly starry sky, but it was so dark you could not even see your hand in front of your face. It was disorienting to see the little lights up above, but know that tons of earth really lay between you and the true sky. Our guide let us know that Glow Worms glow like this to trick little bugs into thinking their light is a way out of the cave- and then they catch them and gobble them up!
One hot shower and cup of tomato soup later, and we were on our way. We stopped in the surf town of Raglan briefly to get some ice cream and check out the very cute town, and found one of the many free spots in New Zealand where you can park your van and sleep for the night. Next we headed up to the picturesque Coromandel Peninsula. Although our first day driving through the area was very rainy and wet, we were blessed with three days of sunshine and some of the best beach views we’ve encountered yet in New Zealand.
One of the fellow cavers from our group had suggested that we check out New Chums Beach, which he had heard was difficult to get to, but well worth the effort. When we arrived, the tide of course was still too high to make our way to the beach. Will thought he had found a way in through a sneaky back road, and we walked about a mile to get to it- only to find it plastered with “No Trespassing!” signs, likely due to other like-minded hikers. Will thought it’d be “probably fine” to walk past those signs anyways, an idea I obviously vetoed immediately. :)After a minute of frustration, we chalked up the detour to “training miles” and “burning off the sausages.” Did I mention that Will’s meal planning for this leg of the trip included A LOT of sausages? (Cue Will’s response: “They were on super sale!”) By the time we made it back, the tide was at a perfect level, and we adventured to New Chums Beach. On the way, there was a VERY steep side path that we attempted, which took us to the top of a tall point and rewarded our climbing on hands and knees with views of two bays!
After the beach we high-tailed it over to Coromandel Town to take a train ride up a mountain in the area- it was so cool! I kept thinking that my brother and nephew would have LOVED it, and that perhaps I too have a passion for trains myself. It must have been the years of being carted around in the family station wagon, chasing after trains to satisfy my brother’s passion for them (PSST: DON'T TELL AARON I ACTUALLY LIKE TRAINS) All in all it was a great day, capped off with a stay at a very unique, family-run winery with a great deal: spend $20 a person and camp for free. We planned to buy a bottle and maybe a pizza and call it a night, but the hilarious bartender named Danny who was serving the free wine tasting had other plans for us. Between numerous jokes and tidbits, he served up shot glasses of different wines, ciders, and unique mixed drinks, our favorite being Feijoa Spritzer (fiejoa is a kind of fruit in New Zealand). We chatted for a long time with two entertaining british girls, and overall the day was amazing!
The next day we traveled to Cathedral Cove (named for it’s amazing archway on the beach), which was simply stunning. The sunshine amplified the color of the turquoise waters, and we spent the morning exploring the area. We met a friendly Israeli couple who we would later run into two more times at different spots throughout Coromandel. Seeing people we’d previously chatted with at totally different areas of the peninsula was a theme for this leg of the journey and a pleasant surprise. After Cathedral Cove we headed over to Hot Water Beach, which we discovered was aptly named. Once low tide hit, everyone took their shovels to the beach (including us- the café on the beach cleverly rents them out!) and dug holes that then filled with natural hot spring water- making your own sandy hot tub! Some of the sand was so hot to the touch it felt like it could burn you, so some degree of caution was necessary amongst the nostalgic sand castle hot tub building.
Of course, and as New Zealand tourism would like you very much to think, no trip to New Zealand is complete without a trip to Hobbiton: the still standing film set for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. The farm on which they filmed, in a smart strategic move, asked when they came back to film The Hobbit that the film-makers leave the set behind this time, and build it to last (as the first time around it was taken down). They now run an efficient attraction, that while I am painting a rather unsympathetic picture of right now, was honestly magical and lovely. Seeing where familiar scenes were filmed was very cool, along with feeling of being transported to another world (despite the NUMEROUS tourists also enjoying the area). During peak season they run tours of 40 people every five minutes!
We ended this leg with a much needed rest day in Rotorua. We accomplished a lot as it rained: sent in absentee ballots, bought supplies for our upcoming hike in a few weeks, sent a postcard to our favorite little guy back home. We tried the hot springs in Rotorua as well and relaxed in a private outdoor hotspring tub. That evening we spent the night with our first Couch Surfing host. Couch Surfing is a community of people who let people come and stay with them for free, so that when they travel they might also have hosts in the area to provide the same. Our host was a 49-year-old Maori man named Grant, who met us in a small town near his property. The first thing he asked us was, “Have you eaten?” And the second thing he asked was, “Want to come to the hot pool?” He brought us to an amazing free and open hot pool near his home that looked like a regular pool, but was fueled by the hot springs nearby. Grant pulled out a few beers, and the rich conversation about his family, people, Maori history, his passions, and questions about our lives was quickly underway. After the hot pool we went back to his one-room home which is totally “off the grid” and on Maori land. Even though there was no plumbing or electricity, it was one of our warmest and most comfortable nights yet as we shared food, personal histories, and dreams. Grant, a cultural and music tutor for twelve different schools and a leader amongst his tribe, taught us how to make all the different Maori sounds so that we could pronounce the language better, and talked at length about his ideas for moving his tribe forward. He shared that the Maori speak about “Mana,” which means essentially the combination intergrity, hospitality, giving, honor, and pride. He talked about how some people live to make money, and he is trying to live a life of Mana. He made quite an impression on us. I felt that I learned so much, but also was reinvigorated to find and follow my own passions and get back to doing things that make me happy- and figuring out what that is along the way! Of course, the guitars were pulled out at one point in the night (along with a few more brews), and it was a night filled with stories, history, and music.
The next day we drove to our next WWOOF site, which we will call home for the next two weeks. I’ll let William fill you in on the details of this place in next week’s posting, but for now in sum: we basically live on a commune, we’ve made some good friends, and are learning quite a bit about sustainability, planting, French words, the stickiness of beeswax, and how to compost your own poop.
