Weekend on the North Island

I spoke too soon. The weather was absolutely beautiful last week! I was even able to break out shorts and dresses. We played a lot of frisbee and frolicked on the field next to the Wier House. One day, Hannah and I took a dip in the fountain by the field.

In terms of classes, last week was pretty exciting. For environmental politics, we took a tour of parliament. We're going to go back in February when it's back in session to observe the process. We're allowed to stand in the public gallery and watch the chaos that supposedly occurs in there on a daily basis. For island biogeography, we visited a quarry to examine rock layers and faults, a small island representing waveform platforms, and the lookout at Mount Victoria, which has a great 360 view of Wellington.

We made a loop in the North Island this weekend, packing as many highlights in as possible.

After classes on Thursday, we picked up our rental cars for the weekend and headed out soon after. The drive was long, especially with the winding, foreign roads, squishing 9 people into 2 sedans, and the drivers' inexperience with driving on the left side of the road in a foreign country. However, we did see pastures, mountains, hills, a sunset, and more sheep than we've seen New Zealanders along the way.

Friday, we "abseiled" 27 meters into a dark cave with a stream and glowworms covering the ceiling. The guide informed us that we were not, in fact, looking at glowworms, but rather the bacteria in the intestines of Arachnocampo luminosa larvae only found in New Zealand and Australia. For a few hours, we mixed bouts of strenuous caving (crawling, squeezing, climbing) with peaceful drifts in an inner tube down the dark stream staring in awe at the bright green luminescing ceiling. The venture ended with a rock-climb up a steep wall leading out of the cave.



After a feast of spaghetti and veggies back at the hostel, the 6 ladies then decided naps were in order, while the 3 boys continued their adventures exploring trails and caves via the light of an occasional camera flash. After our naps, another feast of rice and tofu curry was prepared for dinner. It seems like I'm always eating here... Hopefully I'm working it off with my weekend excursions!

Saturday turned out to be a packed day driving to all of our destinations. The Waikite hot springs near Rotorua were delightful after so much driving. The temps were around 97 to 104 degrees F. We stopped by the geothermals in Hell's Gate on the way back to Rotorua. Lastly, we watched a Maori traditional performance and gorged ourselves in a real feast, then headed to our hostel a couple hours away.


We were pretty lucky Sunday. Long story short: the Google Maps driving time estimate failed us, but we still got to do our original plan of kayaking down the Whanganui River. We were on the river for about 5 hours, going through occasional small rapids and leisurely enjoying the beautiful scenery of surrounding trees, pastures, cows, sheep, birds & butterflies flying across the gorge, and 2 of the 3 boys flipping out of their kayaks. We arrived at the pick up spot early, so we ended this weekend like the last: napping in the sun.

We got after midnight on Sunday & the week has been pretty uneventful. I did have 2 tests today, which kind of ruined any chances of unwinding and relaxing this week. However, on the advice of my dad, I continue to take naps and play frisbee when I should be studying, so it's not all that bad. Classes are really started to get in the way of my recreation... ;)

Tomorrow at 8am, the entire study abroad group is venturing on a trip to the Taupo region (where we were last weekend), but to hike geology-related trails and such. Off to pack...