Jackie's World Tour 2009 – Let the mayhem begin!

New Zealand has been so amazing. I am finally in the South Island and it is just as much fun as the North Island but way more picturesque. It is filled with many mountains, waterfalls, glaciers and gorgeous forests. I have done some great things while in the South Island but a little less extreme than the North Island. I am trying desperately to stop the neverending flow of money going out of my wallet but man it is hard! There are way too many cool things to do and way too much good beer to drink! I have found my new favorite beer, Tui. It is brewed in New Zealand and I am turning into a pretty big fan of the drink. The bonus is that it is always included in the happy hour specials! Whoo-hoo. Oh yeah, did I mention the Cadbury chocolate? You know, the people that make all the chocolate eggs and easter chocolate in the US? Well it is really big here and for some reason it tastes much better here than back home. Yeah, so that has been added to my arsenal of bad things I love to eat almost everyday. It goes hand in hand with the huge Cookie Time cookies. Gotta love a cookie named Cookie Time. I mean it is always cookie time, right?!?!? I thought you would all agree and if you don’t all you need to do it try to cookie time cookies and you will be a believer as well! J Ok, enough about my cookie, chocolate and beer habits for today. So I do have to say that I am bummed that I missed President Obama’s inauguration. What a historic moment that must have been. I am so proud to be an American at this point in time. I was part of the population that helped put our first black president in office. It is quite amazing really. I do have to say that it has totally raised non-American’s opinion of Americans. What I have been coming to find is that many people think that American’s are stupid. When talking politics in particular they really think we are stupid. I have gotten a lot of how could we have elected someone like Bush into office and then reelect him for a second term. I don’t really disagree with them. But that is besides the point. People are changing their opinions since we elected Obama. Non-american’s really, really like Obama. Let’s see if he can live up to the hype. Ok, back to the trip. I am sure no one really cares about my political views. And I really have no problem talking about how freakin beautiful New Zealand is. So when I last left you I had just completed my 3 days of crazy adventure. So after the caving, skydiving, rafting fun it was onto Tongoriro National Park and Mt. Doom! For those who are not into The Lord of The Rings, Mt. Doom is this huge mountain/volcano from the movie. I can’t remember the real name of the mountain ( I think it is Narahoe) but it is part of this really hard 6 hour hike called the Tongoriro Crossing. It is an amazing hike that goes in between 2 active volcanoes. One of those volcanoes is Mt. Doom. It is mostly an uphill climb that is really kind of hard but the views make it totally worth it. I didn’t climb Mt. Doom but I could have if I had the time. It was incredibly steep and I am sure that I would have reenacted the parts of the movie where Frodo is saying her can’t go on anymore cause it looked like an almost vertical climb. Anyway, after Mt. Doom the hike is still very strenuous but the landscape is breathtaking. There are 3 lakes called Emerald Lakes which come about half way through the hike as you start the first descent. They are these beautiful emerald/turquoise pools that just defy what you really think is possible from the color of water. So amazing. The hike then passed another huge lake and then went past some more steaming hot springs fed from the volcanoes into this lush forest with a river running through it. Yeah, breathtaking. That hike was really strenuous but it was so worth it. That is one thing I have to say about NZ, it has some of the prettiest forests I have ever seen. I have done a lot of hiking in my time and NZ blows all of it away with Maine and Arizona in a close second. NZ is so diverse which I love. Half the times it looks like you are walking through Jurassic Park. You’ll see what I am talking about when you look at the pics.After the crossing, Chloe and I decided to spend an extra day in Abel Tasmin which is New Zealand’s smallest but busiest National Park. It is home to the Golden Sand beaches which didn’t impress me too much cause the color of the sand is the same color as the sand back home. But the water is much nicer than back home. It is a gorgeous turquoise blue and you can pretty much see your feet on the ocean floor. We took a boat ride along the whole length of the Able Tasmin Park up to Golden Bay. Able Tasmin is known for it’s coastline which is littered with gold sand beaches and lots of different rock formations. It is a super popular place for sea kayaking and backpacking. I didn’t do either but the boat ride allowed me to see all the beauty of the coastline. We also saw George the dolphin. He was hanging out in one of the bay’s and he apparently is a loner dolphin. He followed the about 2 feet behind the motor. Apparently it is like a spa bath for the dolphins but if you ask me it is a death wish. One wrong move and George would lose his nose! Anyway, got in some nice relaxation and beach time which was much needed. Oh yeah, also got really close to some seals as well. They were pretty cute. The other thing I wanted to write about was ice climbing at the Franz Josef glacier. The Franz Josef glacier is beautiful. It was a pretty cool hike to even get to the glacier and then once you are there you need to strap on crampons to ascend the glacier. That was a lot fun but hard work. Walking up a glacier is as hard as it sounds. We went up about ¼ of the way and stopped to start the ice climbing. OH MY GOD!!! Ice climbing is one of the hardest physical things I have ever done in my life. It is so physically taxing. I found the hardest part was getting the axes to properly stay in the ice. The basic form for ice climbing is as follows: 1)Swing right hand axe into ice so your arm is fully extended 2) then swing your left hand axe into the ice so arm is fully extended 3) tug the shit out of the axes to make sure they are stuck into the ice 4) pray your axes don’t fall out of the ice as you kick you foot into the ice with your toes so your foot sticks into the ice. 5) Pray again as you move your next foot above the other about 8 inches apart 6) Go to take out your axe and repeat process often times falling completely off the vertical sheet of ice cause you only think you have secured your axes and feet into the ice but really haven’t. I think I need to have a better relationship with the man upstairs cause it seemed that all of my praying didn’t help that much and I fell off quite often and usually it was when I was pretty far up the wall. Sigh….it was still awesome even though I sucked at it. Might I stress again that it was so hard and strenuous. My arms and hands felt like they were going to fall off cause I had a death grip on the axes the whole time I was climbing. So my suggestion to anyone who is going to go ice climbing, eat your Wheaties before you leave the house, you are going to need it! JWell, now I am on the bus heading to Wanaka. Myself, Chloe, Caroline and our new convert, Joey are going to spend 2 nights there. There is supposed to be a really cool movie theatre that has couches for seats and an intermission in every movie where they come around and hand out home baked cookies. Should be fun. We are also going to do an amazing hike called the Rob Roy hike the day after. It should be fun. Then I lose Chloe, Caroline and Joey and head down to the deep south where I am hopefully going to spend a couple of days at Curio Bay surfing. Chloe and Caroline are talking about renting a car and meeting me in Curio Bay so we can all surf together. We’ll see if that happens. It would be way cool if it does. But if not, I guess I will just have to make new friends on the beach. Ok, that is enough for now. Thanks for reading about my adventures. I know a lot of people have written me emails and I promise I will write back. It is hard to spend a lot of time on the computer because it winds up getting expensive. A lot of places charge $2 for 15 minutes on the computer so I try to limit my time on the computer as much as possible. I WILL write back but please give me time. J Thanks and hugs to everyone.

So, I am going to start this post with the quote from that ended last post….

The best thing I have heard this week came from our tour guide on the free tour of Auckland. As quoted from Rewi “ Here in New Zealand you can’t sue people if you get injured so we are willing to throw anyone off of anything. “

So you are probably wondering why I am starting this post with that quote. Well simply put, it is totally true. In the past 3 days I have flung myself off a cliff (attached to ropes of course) to abesail down into a cave, I have rafted straight down a 7 meter waterfall and lastly I threw myself out of an airplane 12,000 feet above ground. It has been an insane 3 days since Raglan!

Anyway, Raglan was awesome and I was kind of sad to leave since it was so beautiful. I seriously loved the surfing and the hostel we stayed in was amazing. The last night there myself and 3 of my friends decided the do the flying fox (a seated zip line) and the ropes course as the sun was setting. I have to say it was mighty hysterical. We all pretty much sucked at the ropes course and we all were laughing our asses off at each other. It was pretty funny. I met a pretty cool German and Irish guy that came in on the Stray bus and I had a great time shootin the shit with them. Too bad they were staying an extra day in Raglan or we would have been on the same bus together. Oh just to explain the bus and how it works. It is a hop on and hop off tour. So you can get off wherever you want and stay as long as you want. There is a predetermined route you take and if you like a place you can stay for however long you want and then hop back on the next bus. It is a really cool system. Allows for a lot of flexibility if you have the time.

So onto the next day…woke up nice and early and grabbed the bus complete with a new bus driver. His name is Kerry and he is a crusty older dude who is hysterical. Drinks like there is no tomorrow, smokes like a chimney and curses just as much as me. We get along real well! 😉 Outta Raglan and into Waitomo which is known for its massive cave system. Today I went underwater caving. It was amazing. We abseiled down into the cave and then abseiled further in by going down a couple of waterfalls. It reminded me of why I love caving. It is seriously like being in a different world. What really makes these caves unique is that they have glowworms. Glowworms are tiny maggots that eat but have no place to drop their poop. Their poop stays inside their body and it glows. Eventually they go into a cocoon and emerge as a mouthless fly. They only live for about 3 days cause they can’t eat so all they do is go around and shag all the other flies and procreate. It is pretty interesting. But regardless of all that it is pretty damn cool to turn off the headlamps and see dozens of glowing orbs on the ceilings of the cave. My favorite part of the whole caving experience was of course crawling through the tiny holes but mostly the rock climbing back up out of the cave. I really love rock climbing. I think I am going to try to find some technical climbing to do somewhere else on this trip cause I really enjoy the challenge! That night we went to Uncle Boy’s place and watched a traditional Maori show. All the guys in the group did the Haka (a warrior dance) and all us ladies learned a really simple poi dance. It was pretty damn cool. We stayed over at Uncle Boy’s and then went to Rotorua for some whitewater rafting. This was pretty freakin amazing. It was myself, Chloe, Sofia and Li in a raft together and we had a great time being complete idiots. The rafting was Class 5 and it was really cool. We went down 3 waterfalls the last one being pretty large. Thankfully we all stayed in the raft and none of us went overboard. You go down the waterfall almost vertical and then get submerged under the water, raft and all! It is pretty exhilarating. At one point we got out of the raft and swam down another set of rapids. Again, very cool! J Oh yeah, one other note, all the guys that worked at the raft company were pretty hot. VERY nice bonus plan. Hee-hee

From there it was onto Taupo (which is where I am now) for a little skydiving action! I can’t believe that I actually did it. It was unbelievable. It was by far my favorite thing that I have done so far. It jumped from 12,000 feet. I had an awesome jump partner. His name was Laci (pronounced Latzi). He was from Holland and he was very cool. He totally put me at ease and after 5 minutes of talking we were both making each other laugh. He was the perfect partner for me since I am pretty much a wise-ass and he had a great sense of humor. When we went out of the plane we did a backflip and then did the freefall for 40 seconds. It felt like I was falling forever. What an amazing view of everything. Then when we pulled the parachute we did a whole bunch of these sharp turns which I loved. It was a totally amazing experience. Laci was laughing the whole way down cause I was screaming my head off cause I was so excited. Ok, so I may never come home now. I am going to run away to become a surf/skydiving/rafting/caving instructor! LOL

What can I say it has been an amazing three days. Tomorrow we leave to go to the national park to do the 6 hour Tongoriro crossing hike. It is supposed to be the best on day hike in New Zealand. I can’t wait!

One thing I will say before I close out this blog is that it is totally going to suck to say goodbye to people. Chloe and I had to say good bye to Li and Sofia today. We all became close when we stayed together at Raglan. They hopped off at Rotorua cause they are doing an east coast extension tour that chloe and I are not doing. We are all going to try to meet up in Australia to either do a surf camp together or rent a camper van and cause mayhem along Australia’s west coast. We shall see. I hope we are able to meet. I can already tell that I am going to suck at these goodbyes. Sigh….

Oh yeah, last thing, thanks so much for all of your comments on my blog. I totally appreciate it. Please keep them coming. I am trying to figure out how to comment back on the blog but I have yet to figure it out. I miss all you guys…Big Hugs!!!!! Mwah!

Best quote of the week as spoken by Kerry the Stray bus driver: “Zorbing is fun and all but is over in like 30 seconds…kind of like shagging an American guy.” I almost pissed myself when he said this!