So where was I?

So where was I? Oh right, New Zealand.

Okay, so we are now in the middle of the north island, in a nice little smelly town called Rotorua (its famous for hot springs and the sulfur smell that goes along with it)

Lets see what have the four of us been up to… Well after picking up Ian (a friend from the program, as many of you where wondering. Who is very brave to be traveling with 3 girls. He is with us for a week and we drop him off again on Wed so he can head back to Auckland to catch his plane home)

Next, we headed north to the bay of Islands and we went swimming with the dolphins, which was amazing, but god was it freezing. We were on a nice boat and we followed a pod of them around for a bit, then we were given the go ahead to jump in the water with them. So we all geared up in snorkels and masks and gave it our all in the water to try and keep up with the dolphins. Man, they can swim fast. We couldn’t keep up at all; as soon as we were in the water they were gone. But personally I was okay with it because I was freezing!!!! Then we caught up with them again, so we again tried to get into the water with them and this time I was near the front so I actually got to swim with them. It was so cool. Afterwards we found another pod and there were about 60 in this group. But because there were babies with them we couldn’t swim, so instead we got to sit on top of the boat lean over and they swam right with us. I swear they were looking at me right in the eye. It was so amazing; I’ve never done anything like that ever, anywhere in the world.

The next day we drove, which felt like forever, to the other side of the island. We took this crazy road that wasn’t even on the map! It was pure gravel, up and over the mountain range. Thank god Ian was driving because we would have made it there by Tuesday if I was, I would have been taking every turn so slowly. As we were on the devil death road the funniest thing happened. This family of ducks, mom, dad and 6 fuzzy babies, were waddling along the road. We slowed down to let them fly away, and they didn’t! Mom and dad took flight and left their babies there, we managed to squeeze by them but stupid mom and dad kept flying right in front of the car! Finally mom took off and circled back to what we hope were her abandoned chicks. But stupid dad must have flown with us for 15 minutes until he finally made a right turn and landed in the field right beside the road. I was freaking out, as you know my love for ducks!

Finally we made it to hot water beach, a place where you dig a hole in the sand and the thermal sands heat the water and presto, you have a hot spa. However on the day we went, it was cold as ice and the tide was coming in so strong that the sands were unreachable so we dug our feet in as deep as we could it was warm…but nothing like we were promised, damn tourist traps. So today we were determined to make it up. Today we went to Waitomo Caves and we went tubing down throughout the caves. It was dark and wet and so cold, but we were able to see glowworms on the roof of the cave and it was so amazing to swim through the cave system. We had to jump off this waterfall that was 3 meters high, I was scared of course, as me and heights are not the best of friends, but man was it fun. I would do it again if it wasn’t so cold!

Tonight we hit the up the hot springs, which was an amazing change from the cold cold water we had been swimming in for our whole trip! As you know hot springs get your body VERY hot so you have to cool off in either a cool pool or a shower. Ian, Katie and I went exploring to find the cold shower and we found it right beside the 42-degree pool. So Ian pushed the button for the shower and it was so powerful and cold I screamed! Yep the whole pool of the hot bath laughed out loud at me, I was so embarrassed but I was laughing so hard I didn’t really care!
Typical Sarah move, you would have all loved it!