OK, this brings me up to what I've got ready to go, I have two more days to write up but my flight back home is in 11 hours and I want to go see a Maritime Museum, buy some Kiwi Chocolate, and try one more time to find some of the Dog cartoons that Dot asked me to find.
08/07/2010 Cape Rangitanga
Went up to the very tip of NZ, where we saw the Pacific Ocean meet the Tasmin Sea. The trip up was very beautiful. On the way we visited a Kauri forest preserve. These trees are coniferous natives of NZ that were voraciously harvested by the Europeans for pretty much anything that could be made out of wood. The wood was prized because apparently it had a very even grain, has very few knots as the lower branches fall off, and the trunk is very smooth and round. The problem is that each tree takes hundreds of years to mature, so the supply started to run out fairly quickly. The harvesting was only banned in the 1980s on crown land and in the 90s for all of NZ.
We also moved along a very long strip of coast called the 90 mile beach. It is actually more like 90 km, but the name was apparently made to beat the Aussies who have a beach called 80 mile. We were in a standard tour bus though with knobbly tiers, so the sand was impressively compact to permit the movement with ease. Then we went over to some dunes that we slid down on what were essentially glorified flutter boards. Kind of fun, but I think that I prefer snow over sand as it melts when it gets in your hair, nose, eyes and mouth.
On the trip back we stoped by the “ancient Kauri kingdom” a place that sells Kauri wood carvings and furniture. This may seem strange, what with the whole, “can’t chop down any Kauri trees” law, but they found a large number of giant trees that were blown down about 40-60 kyears bp (by radiocarbon) and preserved in a swamp. So now there is an industry of extracting timber from these ancient Kauri trees, hence the name. Some of the carvings were the usual boring stuff of bowls and plates which were particularly uninteresting because of the lack of knots in the wood. But others were more interesting tables and chairs. They even had a spiral staircase to get to the second level that was a hollowed out Kauri tree, you climbed through the middle to get up. Very neat. I ended up buying a small carved Kiwi bird that was 35$ to use my prize money from the fencing.
Finally we stopped off at a fish n chips shop that advertised itself as “world famous” but after the meal me and a British guy concluded that it was good but certainly not up to the hype. He said “well there’s a better chippy chop just up the road back home.”
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Auckland was really only a stop over to get to the northern tip of the island, which is just the way I like it because I really don't like the Hostel and the city is really just a boring metropolis.
07/07/2010 Trip to Pahia.
Left the base around 0730hrs to catch the Magic bus and off we went.
Upon arrival around 1300 I looked into the option to do SCUBA, turns out that it would cost 240$, so I nixed that idea. Instead I signed up for a “swim with dolphins” tour. Over the rest of the afternoon I went to the grounds of the Treaty of Waitaingi. There I got a tour of the grounds by one of the descendants of four of the chiefs that signed the original document. His views on things were very interesting, seemed like it was all about patience.
07/07/2010 Trip to Pahia.
Left the base around 0730hrs to catch the Magic bus and off we went.
Upon arrival around 1300 I looked into the option to do SCUBA, turns out that it would cost 240$, so I nixed that idea. Instead I signed up for a “swim with dolphins” tour. Over the rest of the afternoon I went to the grounds of the Treaty of Waitaingi. There I got a tour of the grounds by one of the descendants of four of the chiefs that signed the original document. His views on things were very interesting, seemed like it was all about patience.
06/07/2010 Trip to Auckland
06/07/2010 Trip to Auckland
It was fairly boring. We went back through Rotorua and Taupo, saw some nice scenery, mostly more of the rolling green fields with sprinklings of trees. There was also a nice sunrise. The trip was all hustle and bustle, and I didn’t have any proper food because I hadn’t bought any in Wellington. So I had the usual bus stop foods, a grilled cheese sandwich with ham, pineapple and cheese for lunch, and a sausage roll and brownie for dinner. This combined with a general lack of veggies at the fencing abode (food was generally English with roast meats and potatoes with minimal greens) had me craving a carrot when I got in. So I went out at 2100hrs and found a supermarket that I had seen coming in on the bus and bought some veggies.
It was fairly boring. We went back through Rotorua and Taupo, saw some nice scenery, mostly more of the rolling green fields with sprinklings of trees. There was also a nice sunrise. The trip was all hustle and bustle, and I didn’t have any proper food because I hadn’t bought any in Wellington. So I had the usual bus stop foods, a grilled cheese sandwich with ham, pineapple and cheese for lunch, and a sausage roll and brownie for dinner. This combined with a general lack of veggies at the fencing abode (food was generally English with roast meats and potatoes with minimal greens) had me craving a carrot when I got in. So I went out at 2100hrs and found a supermarket that I had seen coming in on the bus and bought some veggies.
05/07/2010 Te Papa and the Weta Cave
05/07/2010 Te Papa and the Weta Cave
Today I went downtown to check out the national museum Te Papa, something that was highly recommended by many people I talked to. I ended up going to the Weta Cave first. It is a small little museum of artifacts of items built by the weta workshops folks. It also doubles as a slightly larger place to sell replicas of weta props and sculptures. It took me about 45 min each way to get there because I was going by public transport and didn’t really know where I was going. I had seen that there were half day tours of various LOTR sites around Wellington, but thought that I would just check out the cave for free (minus bus tickets, but those were essentially free too as I had a 6$ day pass and each way from the home to downtown was 3$. It turns out that with all that time the tours would probably have been a better idea.
So then I got to Te Papa and started wondering around. It is a really big museum with 6 floors of varying surface area. The second has general stuff about plate tectonics as NZ is on the intersection of several plates, which I skipped, as well as info about native plants and animals. I went to that section mainly to see a giant squid that was on display. They also had some deep sea corals that are found around NZ on display and those were neat to look at.
This squid was bycatch caught in the Antarctic by a fishing vessel with NZ flags and scientists on board as it was trying to eat a fish that they had caught. It was then gifted to Te Papa for display as the only giant squid specimen on the *surface* of the Earth. (Obviously there are more below the surface.) So it was examined by biologist and whatnot with every non invasive scan know as well as that pipe camera thing who’s name escapes me, but its outer shape was preserved. They had 4 days to examine it before it started to decompose. Now it is on display, though disappointingly it has shrunk by quite a lot. In movies of its capture it looks like it is ~4m long, but now it is only ~2m.
The fourth floor had Maori history and wood and greenstone carving on display. The carvings were neat though the history was mostly review from my course. It also had a short discussion of the treaty of Waitangi, the agreement between the British Crown and every Maori group to get along nicely. Apparently the English translation was not the same as the official Maori version and so some problems quickly emerged that are still under resolution today as the Brits ran with the English version. It seems that the main difference is the idea of sovereignty, the Maori thought they were keeping it but the Queen thought otherwise.
The fourth floor also had a modern day Maori meeting house for all the tribes of new Zealand as well pakeha (white people) and other immigrants. It was a bit strange because of the pastel lighting and stylised Maori art.
The fifth floor had european and more modern art, most of the European stuff was landscape, kind of like how Canadian art is all landscape. The modern section contained the most recent kiwi contributions to the Venice Bienally, most of which seemed to contain little of artistic merit. The worst offender was a single black rectangle maybe half a square metre that contained a very thin orange cross going through its midlines. Apparently this was supposed to convey some sort of beauty of simplicity, but I thought it was stupid. Probably the most interesting bit took up a whole room and was a curvy and segmented white canvas with orange and black splotches and lines. It looked kind of like music sheets.
The sixth floor was very small and had some pottery by a New Zealand potter. Mostly they were wheel thrown teapots, mugs and urns with a few plates thrown in. Mostly they had earthen tones. I thought they looked quite nice.
I cant remember what was on the third floor, it must have had something, but I think I must be merging it into the others.
Those floors pretty much took up the rest of my day until 430 at which point I wondered around the city for a while taking photos of the parliament buildings, which are a strange mix of architectural styles before finding a bus stop to take me home. Fortunately I had a list of bus times because the bus that took me right back to the home ended services at 6pm.
Today I went downtown to check out the national museum Te Papa, something that was highly recommended by many people I talked to. I ended up going to the Weta Cave first. It is a small little museum of artifacts of items built by the weta workshops folks. It also doubles as a slightly larger place to sell replicas of weta props and sculptures. It took me about 45 min each way to get there because I was going by public transport and didn’t really know where I was going. I had seen that there were half day tours of various LOTR sites around Wellington, but thought that I would just check out the cave for free (minus bus tickets, but those were essentially free too as I had a 6$ day pass and each way from the home to downtown was 3$. It turns out that with all that time the tours would probably have been a better idea.
So then I got to Te Papa and started wondering around. It is a really big museum with 6 floors of varying surface area. The second has general stuff about plate tectonics as NZ is on the intersection of several plates, which I skipped, as well as info about native plants and animals. I went to that section mainly to see a giant squid that was on display. They also had some deep sea corals that are found around NZ on display and those were neat to look at.
This squid was bycatch caught in the Antarctic by a fishing vessel with NZ flags and scientists on board as it was trying to eat a fish that they had caught. It was then gifted to Te Papa for display as the only giant squid specimen on the *surface* of the Earth. (Obviously there are more below the surface.) So it was examined by biologist and whatnot with every non invasive scan know as well as that pipe camera thing who’s name escapes me, but its outer shape was preserved. They had 4 days to examine it before it started to decompose. Now it is on display, though disappointingly it has shrunk by quite a lot. In movies of its capture it looks like it is ~4m long, but now it is only ~2m.
The fourth floor had Maori history and wood and greenstone carving on display. The carvings were neat though the history was mostly review from my course. It also had a short discussion of the treaty of Waitangi, the agreement between the British Crown and every Maori group to get along nicely. Apparently the English translation was not the same as the official Maori version and so some problems quickly emerged that are still under resolution today as the Brits ran with the English version. It seems that the main difference is the idea of sovereignty, the Maori thought they were keeping it but the Queen thought otherwise.
The fourth floor also had a modern day Maori meeting house for all the tribes of new Zealand as well pakeha (white people) and other immigrants. It was a bit strange because of the pastel lighting and stylised Maori art.
The fifth floor had european and more modern art, most of the European stuff was landscape, kind of like how Canadian art is all landscape. The modern section contained the most recent kiwi contributions to the Venice Bienally, most of which seemed to contain little of artistic merit. The worst offender was a single black rectangle maybe half a square metre that contained a very thin orange cross going through its midlines. Apparently this was supposed to convey some sort of beauty of simplicity, but I thought it was stupid. Probably the most interesting bit took up a whole room and was a curvy and segmented white canvas with orange and black splotches and lines. It looked kind of like music sheets.
The sixth floor was very small and had some pottery by a New Zealand potter. Mostly they were wheel thrown teapots, mugs and urns with a few plates thrown in. Mostly they had earthen tones. I thought they looked quite nice.
I cant remember what was on the third floor, it must have had something, but I think I must be merging it into the others.
Those floors pretty much took up the rest of my day until 430 at which point I wondered around the city for a while taking photos of the parliament buildings, which are a strange mix of architectural styles before finding a bus stop to take me home. Fortunately I had a list of bus times because the bus that took me right back to the home ended services at 6pm.
04/07/2010 Fencing tournament.
04/07/2010 Fencing tournament.
So I got the gear together and then fenced foil. That was entertaining. There were only 10 people in the tourney, so they prolonged the tourney with two rounds of pools which was nice because I ended up being able to fencing with almost everyone before getting to the DEs. That was fun, I ended up coming into the DEs 4th with 3 losses out of 8 boughts. Then it was into the breach, I got a buy to the round of 8. First up was a saberist, so clearly foilists were not particularly well represented. I took him down fairly easily, like all saberists he was parrying quite wide. Then it was on to a proper foist. He was much more of a challenge. He was actually up 14 to 10 thought good foil technique and knife fighting. Some how I was able to get him on a few knife fights as he tried to rush the end, and close the gap with some fleshes to 14 all. And then win it.
In the final I was fencing William, the lefty (epeeist) owner of my pants, blade, wire and jacket. (Mask was borrowed from the club.) So that was interesting, I was really starting to warm up and do well, then I beat William 15 10 I think. So that was a bit embarrassing because some crazy canuck won an historic tournament. But I got 35 NZ$ prize money too! Later on it seemed that NZ just doesn’t flesh as a whole because people were complimenting me on them when, while they were good for me, were certainly not as good as Matti’s or many other Vancouverites.
The rest of the day the folks drove me around Wellington stopping off at the various view points that are common tourists traps. I didn’t really expect that, but it was kind of them to do that.
So I got the gear together and then fenced foil. That was entertaining. There were only 10 people in the tourney, so they prolonged the tourney with two rounds of pools which was nice because I ended up being able to fencing with almost everyone before getting to the DEs. That was fun, I ended up coming into the DEs 4th with 3 losses out of 8 boughts. Then it was into the breach, I got a buy to the round of 8. First up was a saberist, so clearly foilists were not particularly well represented. I took him down fairly easily, like all saberists he was parrying quite wide. Then it was on to a proper foist. He was much more of a challenge. He was actually up 14 to 10 thought good foil technique and knife fighting. Some how I was able to get him on a few knife fights as he tried to rush the end, and close the gap with some fleshes to 14 all. And then win it.
In the final I was fencing William, the lefty (epeeist) owner of my pants, blade, wire and jacket. (Mask was borrowed from the club.) So that was interesting, I was really starting to warm up and do well, then I beat William 15 10 I think. So that was a bit embarrassing because some crazy canuck won an historic tournament. But I got 35 NZ$ prize money too! Later on it seemed that NZ just doesn’t flesh as a whole because people were complimenting me on them when, while they were good for me, were certainly not as good as Matti’s or many other Vancouverites.
The rest of the day the folks drove me around Wellington stopping off at the various view points that are common tourists traps. I didn’t really expect that, but it was kind of them to do that.
03/07/2010 End of Taupo+Fencing?
03/07/2010 End of Taupo+Fencing?
Went Bungeeing. Started off thinking that it didn’t look too bad, then I shuffled to the platform with this brace around my ankles. And looked all the way down. So that made me reconsider things a bit. Then I took a few deep breaths and followed the instructions of the assistant to look straight ahead. Then it was 3 2 1 bungee and leaned forward off the platform. Very scary for the first 5 seconds and then absolutely thrilling! Very strange. The lady was ready to push me off too, when I looked at some movies of the day’s jumps, she had pushed a Saudi girl off right before me, and had her hand on my back. Anyways, I came out at the end with a giant grin on my face wanting to do it again. Fortunately for my wallet and blood pressure, I had to walk back up the cliff and by then I had regained my senses I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do it again. Anyways, had to do it because I was in NZ.
Then it was time to get onto the bus to Wellington. We were late so there was no time to stop for a long dinner, so I grabbed a sausage roll some french fries, and apple and carrot cake with about 1 inch of icing from the truck stop and then we were off into the night watching Indiana Jones on the over head. When I finally got to Wellington I was picked up by Vicki, a fencing mom. She took me to a down town pub where the Victoria university fencing club was celebrating its 100th anniversary. Not really a continuous strip of time she told me, but apparently there was a bit of a pissing match between the local clubs about which was the longest and someone found a record of the club having a group of Female epeeists back in 1910. There I had some Kumera chips to top off the evening since everyone else was pretty much at the dessert stage. I was invited to partake in an open foil tournament (the epee tourney was this day) so I said sure why not, if you have the gear. It turns out that the son of the Fencing mom is a lefty epeeist, so I was able to use his old stuff (he was entering for fun too).
Went Bungeeing. Started off thinking that it didn’t look too bad, then I shuffled to the platform with this brace around my ankles. And looked all the way down. So that made me reconsider things a bit. Then I took a few deep breaths and followed the instructions of the assistant to look straight ahead. Then it was 3 2 1 bungee and leaned forward off the platform. Very scary for the first 5 seconds and then absolutely thrilling! Very strange. The lady was ready to push me off too, when I looked at some movies of the day’s jumps, she had pushed a Saudi girl off right before me, and had her hand on my back. Anyways, I came out at the end with a giant grin on my face wanting to do it again. Fortunately for my wallet and blood pressure, I had to walk back up the cliff and by then I had regained my senses I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do it again. Anyways, had to do it because I was in NZ.
Then it was time to get onto the bus to Wellington. We were late so there was no time to stop for a long dinner, so I grabbed a sausage roll some french fries, and apple and carrot cake with about 1 inch of icing from the truck stop and then we were off into the night watching Indiana Jones on the over head. When I finally got to Wellington I was picked up by Vicki, a fencing mom. She took me to a down town pub where the Victoria university fencing club was celebrating its 100th anniversary. Not really a continuous strip of time she told me, but apparently there was a bit of a pissing match between the local clubs about which was the longest and someone found a record of the club having a group of Female epeeists back in 1910. There I had some Kumera chips to top off the evening since everyone else was pretty much at the dessert stage. I was invited to partake in an open foil tournament (the epee tourney was this day) so I said sure why not, if you have the gear. It turns out that the son of the Fencing mom is a lefty epeeist, so I was able to use his old stuff (he was entering for fun too).
01/07/2010 Biking around Taupo
01/07/2010 Biking around Taupo
Rented bike and went to the craters of the moon and Huka falls. The falls weren’t all that impressive, there was a heck of a lot of water moving through a narrow gorge and then falling down 8m, but it really didn’t look like that much. The craters of the moon were a bit more interesting because of the steam flowing out of the ground and a whole bunch of holes. Anyways, it took me a while to get used to the different gear ratios to use in the mountain bike, generally much lower, but then I over shot and started to do whealies on steeper slopes. In the end it was a tiering day, all that spinning of legs wasn’t something I was used to anymore.
I got back a bit before dinner time so I went down to the Lake and watched the sun set, kind of pretty with a snow capped volcanic cone in the distance on the other side.
In the evening talked to a new German who was taking exchange program in Aussi, and a Swiss guy who came to NZ to learn some English. He had probably the best job I’ve heard yet. He was an apprentice at the Lint Chocolate Factory!!
Rented bike and went to the craters of the moon and Huka falls. The falls weren’t all that impressive, there was a heck of a lot of water moving through a narrow gorge and then falling down 8m, but it really didn’t look like that much. The craters of the moon were a bit more interesting because of the steam flowing out of the ground and a whole bunch of holes. Anyways, it took me a while to get used to the different gear ratios to use in the mountain bike, generally much lower, but then I over shot and started to do whealies on steeper slopes. In the end it was a tiering day, all that spinning of legs wasn’t something I was used to anymore.
I got back a bit before dinner time so I went down to the Lake and watched the sun set, kind of pretty with a snow capped volcanic cone in the distance on the other side.
In the evening talked to a new German who was taking exchange program in Aussi, and a Swiss guy who came to NZ to learn some English. He had probably the best job I’ve heard yet. He was an apprentice at the Lint Chocolate Factory!!
30/07/2010 Trip to Taupo
30/07/2010 Trip to Taupo
This happened in the middle of the day so that I got in around dinner time.\
When I got to Taupo I met some people who were doing the Magic tour together after meeting in Wellington. They had a German who was a professional chef and were cooking up a storm of nice smelling meat balls. Another of the guys had the interesting profession of fire engineer, a guy who looks at the blueprints of commercial buildings and makes sure that there are enough preventative measures, that exits are well situated, that materials are appropriate, that baffles built in the ceiling will keep the hot air from circulating etc.
This happened in the middle of the day so that I got in around dinner time.\
When I got to Taupo I met some people who were doing the Magic tour together after meeting in Wellington. They had a German who was a professional chef and were cooking up a storm of nice smelling meat balls. Another of the guys had the interesting profession of fire engineer, a guy who looks at the blueprints of commercial buildings and makes sure that there are enough preventative measures, that exits are well situated, that materials are appropriate, that baffles built in the ceiling will keep the hot air from circulating etc.
29/06/2010 Rotorua
Not sure what is going on with the dates in my note pad, I know I was here for 2 days, but w/e I'll sort that out later.
29/06/2010 Rotorua
Today had a leisurely time getting up as bus to Rotorua left at 11am so not enough time to get anywhere. I spent a bit of time hanging around the giftshop waiting. I ended up buying a fill in the blank post card which seemed to perfectly fit my desire to put little effort into communication.
Then it was on to a 2hr trim through ridiculously lush green rolling fields. Despite all that I ended up nodding off for about half a trip. Which seems to be some sort of problem I’ve picked up, I’ve fallen asleep in pretty much every bus I’ve gotten into .
Once in Rotorua I tried to set up my plans for the place. It is known for hot pools and thermal activity but those tend to get sillily expensive as the people there charge exorbitant rates just for looking at them. While I’m certainly willing to part with exorbitant sums of cash, see the 7hr extravaganza, but not so much for thermal springs that I’ve probably seen similar or better examples of in Yellowstone. So I was trying to focuses on the history and culture. Then I learnt that it had a tour of Hobbiton, so I had to jump at that. Apparently the set was mostly taken down by the movie compagny who had agreed to put the famer’s land back to it’s orgininal state. Then the rains came and so the people had to stop because of the mud. Then people came to ask about the set over the course of a year, so the farmers asked if they could keep the set. I also had to sign some sort of nondisclosure paper about not posting pictures on the internet, so I’m not going to go anyfurther with that on the blog.
And then I learnt that there was a Kiwi exhibit. Apparently this place had an eruption last time around 1820ish that resulted in the burial of a village.
Apparently this region was the first place to make a big tourism hit by having the pink and white terraces. Those were destroyed by the eruption. Then the place became a big hit when people were marketing it as a place with good waters for “hydropathy” apparently the mix of waters with both acid and base was a big draw.
29/06/2010 Rotorua
Today had a leisurely time getting up as bus to Rotorua left at 11am so not enough time to get anywhere. I spent a bit of time hanging around the giftshop waiting. I ended up buying a fill in the blank post card which seemed to perfectly fit my desire to put little effort into communication.
Then it was on to a 2hr trim through ridiculously lush green rolling fields. Despite all that I ended up nodding off for about half a trip. Which seems to be some sort of problem I’ve picked up, I’ve fallen asleep in pretty much every bus I’ve gotten into .
Once in Rotorua I tried to set up my plans for the place. It is known for hot pools and thermal activity but those tend to get sillily expensive as the people there charge exorbitant rates just for looking at them. While I’m certainly willing to part with exorbitant sums of cash, see the 7hr extravaganza, but not so much for thermal springs that I’ve probably seen similar or better examples of in Yellowstone. So I was trying to focuses on the history and culture. Then I learnt that it had a tour of Hobbiton, so I had to jump at that. Apparently the set was mostly taken down by the movie compagny who had agreed to put the famer’s land back to it’s orgininal state. Then the rains came and so the people had to stop because of the mud. Then people came to ask about the set over the course of a year, so the farmers asked if they could keep the set. I also had to sign some sort of nondisclosure paper about not posting pictures on the internet, so I’m not going to go anyfurther with that on the blog.
And then I learnt that there was a Kiwi exhibit. Apparently this place had an eruption last time around 1820ish that resulted in the burial of a village.
Apparently this region was the first place to make a big tourism hit by having the pink and white terraces. Those were destroyed by the eruption. Then the place became a big hit when people were marketing it as a place with good waters for “hydropathy” apparently the mix of waters with both acid and base was a big draw.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
28/06/2010: 7hr splunking extravigansa
OK, it never rains but it pours right? I've been saving up some posts because the last hostel didn't have internet.
28/06/2010: 7hr splunking extravigansa
Today I went on the trip that almost didn't happen because of insufficient bookings though it turned out that another group of 3 people signed up in the evening so it was a group of 5. The trip was advertised as 7hr trip into one of the caves in the area that started off with a abseil into the depths. This was seriously underestimating the trip.
We started off by going to a ex woolshead where we were given combined wetsuit leggings and toresoes and a wetsuit jacket to go overtop of that. There was also a neoprene belt to go around the upper waist that was apparently supposed to keep our kidneys warm. Then we got thin booties for our feet and rubber boots on top of that. Finally we got a harness for the abseil which would also be used several times as an attachment to some safety lines through the cave and an orange helmet with a light on.
We trudged down in our strange getup and lined up on platform next two ten thumb thick ropes that descended ~100 metres into a ravine with a river running through it, entering and exiting at either end through the cave. This cave was allegedly 5km long with this entry point about halfway.
After sliding down the ropes for about 15 min we got to the floor and had lunch. Then we entered the cave and were in water for pretty much the rest of the day. One of the neat thing about going down the ropes was seeing some sideways stalactites growing from the walls. Apparently they start off going straight down like normal but then curve out as moss grows on them and alters the direction of water flow.
We were going up against the flow of the river and that was a very good thing for safety. The force of the water would change frequently depending on the width of the cave, sometimes it was wide and shallow so that the top of our boots were dry and sometimes when the cave got very narrow or steep moving felt a bit like rockclimbing with gravity turned 90 degrees. We would not be able to touch the bottom, were quite buoyant in our wetsuits and the current was so strong that we had to pull our selfs along the cave wall. This whole experience was loads of fun. According to our guides the water was as high as it could be and still allow people through, infact it had been closed over the weekend because of that.
Occasionally we would leave the water to scramble over boulders or avoid having to climb up waterfalls or just for a change, sometimes we went through low gaps though I think that was more for the photo opp that it presented rather than necessity.
Perhaps surprisingly I was rarely cold, It was only when we stopped twice, once to get a silly shot of people emerging from a small waterfall and once to turn off the lights to look at glow worms near the end of the
At the end we went back to the sheep farm and were fed a small amount of steak and then some roast veggies and salad for dinner. Yum.
28/06/2010: 7hr splunking extravigansa
Today I went on the trip that almost didn't happen because of insufficient bookings though it turned out that another group of 3 people signed up in the evening so it was a group of 5. The trip was advertised as 7hr trip into one of the caves in the area that started off with a abseil into the depths. This was seriously underestimating the trip.
We started off by going to a ex woolshead where we were given combined wetsuit leggings and toresoes and a wetsuit jacket to go overtop of that. There was also a neoprene belt to go around the upper waist that was apparently supposed to keep our kidneys warm. Then we got thin booties for our feet and rubber boots on top of that. Finally we got a harness for the abseil which would also be used several times as an attachment to some safety lines through the cave and an orange helmet with a light on.
We trudged down in our strange getup and lined up on platform next two ten thumb thick ropes that descended ~100 metres into a ravine with a river running through it, entering and exiting at either end through the cave. This cave was allegedly 5km long with this entry point about halfway.
After sliding down the ropes for about 15 min we got to the floor and had lunch. Then we entered the cave and were in water for pretty much the rest of the day. One of the neat thing about going down the ropes was seeing some sideways stalactites growing from the walls. Apparently they start off going straight down like normal but then curve out as moss grows on them and alters the direction of water flow.
We were going up against the flow of the river and that was a very good thing for safety. The force of the water would change frequently depending on the width of the cave, sometimes it was wide and shallow so that the top of our boots were dry and sometimes when the cave got very narrow or steep moving felt a bit like rockclimbing with gravity turned 90 degrees. We would not be able to touch the bottom, were quite buoyant in our wetsuits and the current was so strong that we had to pull our selfs along the cave wall. This whole experience was loads of fun. According to our guides the water was as high as it could be and still allow people through, infact it had been closed over the weekend because of that.
Occasionally we would leave the water to scramble over boulders or avoid having to climb up waterfalls or just for a change, sometimes we went through low gaps though I think that was more for the photo opp that it presented rather than necessity.
Perhaps surprisingly I was rarely cold, It was only when we stopped twice, once to get a silly shot of people emerging from a small waterfall and once to turn off the lights to look at glow worms near the end of the
At the end we went back to the sheep farm and were fed a small amount of steak and then some roast veggies and salad for dinner. Yum.
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