New Zealand...

It has been a while since my last post!  Finals and saying goodbyes to friends from Bond took up a lot of time and energy.  Leaving Bond was bittersweet.  I was happy to start moving on to different places and experiences, but leaving a place I called home for four months was a bit strange.  Carrying all of my possessions in two suitcases and a backpack is a strange feeling, especially because my suitcases are in Sydney just hanging out in a locker.  Enough with the boring stuff!

I am now in New Zealand, Manukau to be exact, staying with one of my mates from Bond.  I am here with Jorge, Pat, and Jeff (the kid made it down!).  We headed down to a town called Rotorua which is about 2 1/2 hours south of Auckland City, and a haven for extreme adventures and activities.  The town is located near geysers and thermal hot springs which makes for incredible views, but the smell of sulfur throughout the air is hard to take in.

Our first order of business in Rotorua was to "Zorb".  Zorbing is rolling down a hill inside a plastic orb.  Yes, that's correct.  These orbs are about eight feet in diameter and have to layers. One layer is for the rider to sit/get tossed around in, and an outer layer.  The layers are separated by about two feet of air, and hundreds of strings to keep the inner layer from moving around.  Once at the top of a 50 meter hill, the orb is filled with warm water, occupied by a participant, and then pushed down a zig-zagging course, tossing the rider around in the orb.  It was quite a bit of fun, but I am glad we did this activity first.

We had the need for more adventure after being thrown down a hill in a plastic air bubble, so we found our way to an adventure park on the side of a mountain.  We took a gondola ride up the mountain and then luged down the mountain.  This was not like an olympic luge on ice and on your back.  This luge was like an alpine slide or go-kart without a motor.  We took two rides down the 2 km long track hitting some pretty good speeds.  Jeff actually took a turn too fast and flipped his cart, but he is okay from the fall.  After our races, our hearts were pumping, but there was still more to come that day.  Just a few meters away from the luge, there was something called the Sky Swing.  The sky swing is basically a swing, but it is located on a cliff of the mountain.  After being strapped in in about 100 different ways, we were lifted about 25 meters off the ground, ready to swing.  The cool thing about this ride, was that one of the people in the swing actually had to pull the string to release us at 150 km/h in two seconds. Jeff pulled the string, and sent us off screaming like little kids.  The view from the top was amazing!

The next day things became a bit more extreme.  We headed about 15 minutes down the road to the Kaituna River for a bit of whitewater rafting.  I was a bit apprehensive to raft again because I had done it already the summer before, but once I found out we would be rafting down the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world, I was in.  We rafted down the class 5 river for about 50 minutes culminating with the waterfall.  We took "hold on" positions and we needed every ounce of strength to stay in the boat.  After landing from the fall, our boat was basically underwater, and then somehow the boat was basically sideways.  I'm not sure how we righted ourselves, but after what seemed like an eternity, our boat was right side up with everybody still on board.  After a few more rapids we were off the river and heading back to the hotel.

After a few hours of rest, we headed to the Waiatapu Geysers for a quick peek at some natural wonders.  The smell of sulfur was intense, but could not distract us enough from the natural beauty of the area.  Pictures are coming.

Yesterday was the culmination of craziness with the sky jump!  We headed in to Auckland to the Sky Tower which happens to be the highest building in the southern hemisphere.  We headed up to the top floor 192 meters from the ground, and jumped off of it!  Well kind of.  We were strapped to a cable and took the plunge for about 11 seconds in an assisted free fall.  We topped out at about 80 km/h and caught a great view.  After jumping off the ledge, we were stopped after about 10 meters and were able to take in the view, suspended 180 meters about the city.  It was sunset and the view was amazing!  After landing, we were all amazed at what we had just accomplished.

That is it for now.  Sorry this isn't very detailed or anything, but time is short here and we want to take advantage of every minute here.  Next post will probably be from Melbourne!  See ya soon!