taupo and rotorua

so this past weekend we had no school on friday (for anzac day - australia and new zealand army corps - basically like their version of memorial day) so we decided to go do something adventurous that we had been talking about doing which will remain a mystery until it actually happens.

as with all weekend trips, there was a party the night before. this one was an ih party down in the game room, and the theme was "blast from the past: 50's-90's." we pulled together costumes about an hour beforehand, i ended up being a hippie with my tunic shirt i got in rarotonga and my cord capris, and braids and a hairband emily had tied around my head. most people thought i was a native american though. which was really funny because kendall actually is. sophie had a skirt of kendall's she was pretending was a poodle skirt, and kendall was from the 90's with a jean skirt and green converse with tall pink socks. emily was also a hippie, she just had her pareau around her neck like a scarf and a necklace with a peace sign. ej was the best, she was her mom pregnant with her in the 80's, so she just had a nice dress on that we stuffed 3 of our pareaus under.

the party cost $5 to get in, and everyone got 3 drinks and pizza. i only had one of my drinks, and gave the other 2 to ace. they had ddr and sing star, and kendall and i were excited about ddr, but we couldn't hear the song over the party music which made it really hard. some of the kids in ih have a band and they played some cover songs and were pretty good. all the music was like classic songs that everyone loves so it was a lot of fun dancing around to them. some of the costumes were really good, others were not. 4 of the guys were teenage mutant ninja turtles, but they said they had just used poster paint on their bodies adn it hurt so they washed that off and came back without costumes. barret was a rubick's cube which was amazing, and some girls were steve urkle and madonna (she had birthday hats on her boobs like madonna's pointey bra outfit). we kept saying we were going to bed, but then another great song would come on and we'd stay a little longer. eventually we left, before 1.

our trip was originally going to be me sophie ej and kenedall, but we ended up with 10 people: us 4, plus danielle, lee, rachel, and michelle who are all in ies, and laura who lives in ih and knows lee, and jeff, another american some of them knew from tramping club. we obviously needed 2 cars (3 would really probably have been better. it was VERY squished). so it was danielle, me, sophie, ej, and kendall in one (we were the mystery-activity group) and the others in the other car (they were going to do the tongariro crossing, a 7-9 hour hike instead of our activity on saturday). 

we left around 10 am, and danielle drove and i navigated, which was great because the back seat was quite a cozy location in our tiny 2 door car. i was actually pretty squashed in the shotty spot as well. we had 3 cds, mine and sophies from our easter roadtrip, and a random oc soundtrack we found in the cd player of the car. by the end of the trip we were pretty sick of all 3. it took us about 5 hours to drive from auckland to taupo. we stopped in matamata, aka hobbiton and took some pictures in the pretend hobbit hole at the tourism center, but the guided set tours were super expensive so we just kept going. navigating was pretty easy because i've been to the area twice on kayaking trips so i more or less had a good idea of where we were going. and there really aren't that many roads to choose from. at one point ej said "linnell what are those animals?" and i looked around for some exotic animal, and finally said "you mean the cows?" and she said "i didn't know they came in brown" and it was really funny. she is from new york city so i guess it's slightly excusable.

we were looking for a place called craters of the moon on the way to taupo, but we did not see it so we just went to the hostel and checked in, which was a little chaotic because 3 of us had booked parts of our group, and the second car was not there yet. ej and i were in one room with 6 other people, and sophie, kendall, and danielle were in another big dorm room. after a little bit rachel called us and said they found craters of the moon and it was right across from the huka falls lookout, so we drove back and hiked down to huka falls and eventually found them. i had already been to the falls (both during p2p and on the way home form a kayaking trip) but it was still cool to see again. we stayed there for awhile and some people climbed out on rocks in the river but i stayed far from the edge. 160 cubic meters of water per second goes over the falls, so that part is super frothy and moving fast, but then both upstream and downstream the river is wider and it's perfectly flat and calm. and the falls are this really cool teal blue color, sort of like franz josef glacier was.

anyway after that we hiked back up to the cars, and drove across the street to craters of the moon, which is this place that was someone's farmland, but when they put in the hydrothermal power plant or dam or something in the 50's, all these steam holes and stuff appeared, and now it's a tourist attraction where you just kind of walk through (and pay $5 to do it). it was almost 5 by then and they said the gates closed at 5:30, so our car decided to do it on saturday while the others were still doing tongariro, but they stayed and walked through. so we went back into town and parked by the lake and walked around. taupo is the biggest lake in the southern hemisphere and there's a lot of fishing and water sports i think, but it was sunset by then so all we saw was a parasailer. we wanted to play mini golf but the place closed at 5 as well.

we ended up just walking back to the hostel, where the others met us and they checked in, and then they gave us a ride to get our car. after that we walked down the street to this place one of the hostel people had told us to go for cheap food, and we walked in and this guy with a heavy irish accent started talking to us and it took us several minutes for anyone to realize he was selling us hostel beds instead of dinner. when we finally sorted out what we were actually there for he was confused because it turns out its a hostel/bar and not a restaurant, but the hostel does have a bbq so he said for $9 each we could stay, so most of us did. a couple others went down the street and got pizza and brought it back. the bbq was quite good, and the hostel was both nicer and cheaper than ours (which cost $7-9 more than advertised online) so if i go back with riley and/or serita we will definitely stay there.

after that we walked to the grocery store and bought hokey pokey ice cream (a very kiwi thing, hokey pokey is basically sponge candy and they love it) and people got assorted other stuff, and then we went back and ate the ice cream at our hostel and the hikers made their plans for the next morning (they were getting up at 5:30 am).

when ej and i went to our room to pick out beds and stuff, the lights were off. after making sure no one was there and already sleeping, we looked for a lightswitch, but couldn't find one. there was some sort of button behind the door, which ej hit (harder than intended) and an alarm immediately started going off and people were coming outside from the whole building (our room was in a different building from the main hostel building), and a lady came running over from the office looking alarmed. we just took our stuff with us and went back to find the others in the tv room and pretended we had no idea what happened. ha ha. we found everyone in the tv room and watched this dumb show with a guy answering questions with a lie detector while his wife/boss/etc were there hearing his answers. we met these 2 guys, one from the chech republic who is just here on holiday backpacking everywhere, and the other from pennsylvania who's doing study abroad in wellington. apparently they just met at a hostel earlier in the week and decided to rent a car together with some others. very brave!

we went to bed around midnight and there was this guy who was snoring ridiculously loudly in our dorm, but i was tired so it didn't bother me. in the morning we got up at 9, and checked out and everything, but when we called our activity for the day to confirm, they said it was cancelled due to the weather. we called the other companies in the area, but they said if one was cancelled they all would be.

sophie and kendall decided they would bungy jump instead, so we went and watched them do that and took lots of pictures and videos. they both wanted to touch the water but neither did. they said it was fun but really fast, and the scariest part was the waiting to jump off. i didn't think it was worth $99.

then we got lunch at a cafe/bakery in town, and walked around to the tourist stores a bit, and by then it was sort of misty/raining. after that we went to craters of the moon, and walked through. it said it was an hour walk, but it took us MAYBE half an hour, and we stopped to take a lot of pictures and stuff. there was some sort of bike race/scavenger hunt going on there, and all these women in bright pink jerseys kept running past. it was pretty cool how there was just steam rushing out of the ground everywhere, although i think it would have been a cooler hike had there not been a set footpath for everyone to walk on and stuff (and if we hadn't had to pay to get in!).

after that we were kind of damp, so we drove on up the road towards rotorua, and stopped at puzzle world, which was free! they had a big maze to walk thru, and lots of simulated things liek golf and skeet shooting, which all cost money, but there were lots of games to play in the cafe area for free, and we stayed for a couple hours. they had a giant 'rush hour' puzzle and a giant 'connect 4' which kendall and i played and i won 2 out of 3. they also had ice cream so of course i got some.

then the other group called and said they were on their way around 5, when puzzle world was closing, so we said we'd meet them at the secret spot, which lee, kendall and i had been to on the last kayaking trip. we successfully found it, and the others were already there, so kendall and i joined them, but the others didn't have their togs so they stayed in the car and watched a tv show on danielle's laptop. we finally got out around 6:30, after it had gotten dark, and drove the rest of the way to rotorua to our hostels. 

4 of us had to stay at a different one because the cheapest didn't have room for all of us, but i had booked all the rooms so we first all went to the microtel, where most people were staying, and got them settled, and then danielle, sophie, laura, and i drove a couple of blocks (and a few one way streets) over to the crash palace backpackers where we were staying. after showering everyone but laura decided we didn't feel like going back to hang out with the others, so laura walked and the rest of us just read our books/watched tv/hung out for awhile, and went to bed by like 10. it was nice because it was just the 4 of us in an 8 person dorm room.

in the morning we checked out a little before 10, then went back over to the microtel to get the others. once all checked out and packed up, we stopped for gas/food, and then a bunch of people went zorbing, which is where you are in a clear rubber plastic ball and get rolled down a hill. it looks like so much fun but i promised riley i'd go with him when he comes to visit, so i did not go. also, the kind where you are suspended in the ball was closed due to the wind, so the only option was where they put you in loose with some warm water, which i didn't want to do anyway. so we watched everyone go, some of them went in groups which looked like fun sloshing around together and jeff tried to stay upright, like running in a hamster ball (unsuccessfully).

after that the other car and kendall wanted to go to the gondola/luge place (where i also went with p2p) but the rest of our car wanted to get back to auckland to study/do our homework, so kendall squished in with them. ej had left her shirt at the hostel so we went back to get that, and stopped at burger fuel for lunch. i got kumara fries with aioli which was just as amazing as the first time i was there with the canoeing club.

then i drove basically all the way back to auckland, which is supposed to take about 3.5 hours. however after 2.5 hours we came to virtually stopped traffic, where at times i actually put the car in park. while waiting 2 ambulances, a police car, and a fire truck went past us, so we assumed there was an accident, and eventually we went past it, although i'm not sure how bad it was. there were several severely damaged cars though. after that the traffic got better for a little while, but we reached stopped traffic again, and travelled at speeds under 10kph for about an hour, until we reached the auckland motorway and it thinned out again with 2 lanes. i let danielle drive when we got to the motorway, and we made it back before 6, in time for the always delicious ih dinner. (it is nice to not pay for food though, i must admit). 

now i am going to study for my computer science test on tuesday. ciao

kitesurfing lesson 3

this is gonna be short, but yesterday morning (saturday) i texted andrew (kitesurfing instructor) and asked if i could come for a lesson, and he said to go to pt. chevalier at noon. he said he could pick me up for an extra 20 dollars, and i asked if there was a bus and he said probably, but i could also walk. online it said it would take an hour and 45 min, but i had nothing else to do so i decided to walk (and take the bus if i got tired). it was pretty far and took nearly that long, but i wasn't too tired (although my feet did hurt from wearing my flip flops, i also walked for about 3 hours in them the previous day). there was this really funny ad on a lot of bus stops i went by that had a picture of pineapple lumps (nz candy), then said "makes up for god giving" and then a picture of ugg boots. i really wish i had my camera.

the beach is in a park on the side of one of the little corners of the auckland harbour, so there were no waves which was nice. there were 4 french people in the lesson, and then a guy who had bought his own stuff but was a complete beginner, and howie, the guy from the yacht that came with the italian girls to my first lesson. andrew and his wife/girlfriend minot (also french) were both teaching, as well as another guy named cyrus. when he asked what size kite i wanted i decided 6m again, which is what i had the last time when the wind was lighter, but it had felt a little under-powered then, and he said good choice. the french people had all been to 2 lessons before as well, although some of them had gotten the board then and some had not. we all inflated our kites and launched, and then carried our boards to the water. cyrus helped me get to the water and gave me some pointers, but before long i was a ways down wind of him, so i was basically on my own figuring things out (which was actually kind of nice). andrew was up and kiting around checking on everyone and helping catch lost boards and stuff, and basically we would just keep trying until we got to a yellow buoy and some windsurfers, and then we'd have to walk back upwind which was tiring and time-consuming. i think that's where an instructor with a boat or jetski would be really nice, until you learn to ride upwind.

after a bit i was up and riding to the right (the way i normally wakeboard) but getting up to the left was harder. i had done it a couple times by the end. i also lost my board twice but i body dragged upwind and got it (after a lot of back and forth). andrew was very impressed that i had gotten my board back myself though, i think he was doing a lot of fetching for the others. he said when he went by after i'd gotten up the first time that he could tell by the huge smile on my face.

by around 5 i was pretty tired and we took our kites down and walked up the beach a last time. minot had been teaching the beginner guy, and she said he taken off too hard while body dragging and injured himself, and that the guys are always reckless. while we were taking our kites down and waiting for everyone she and the french people were conversing in french, and i caught an occasional word i understood, but really, nothing at all. they were really nice though, and included me in english several times. andrew gave us a safety lesson on what to do if you are out away from shore and can't fly your kite anymore (unhook and use it as a sail to get back to shore if you can, and if not, roll it up and use your board to float and start swimming).

then i was preparing to go catch the bus back, but andrew asked the french people where they were going and if they could give me a ride and they said sure which was really nice. they have been here 5 months and work for air nz (i told them i wouldn't hold it against them about my lost bags). after that i had dinner, showered, and did my photos and blog and went to bed. 

now it's 4pm on sunday and i REALLY need to study for my anthro test on wednesday and look at my comp sci project (which is due may 28 but the others in the class seemed to think that wasn't enough time).

rarotonga 2: monday-friday

continuing on...

monday it was pouring rain so we couldn't do the lagoon cruise as planned. so they swapped with the plans for wednesday. 

in the morning we went to the university of the south pacific campus for a lecture on the environment. as far as i can tell it's just one building, and they mainly have classes via satellite. this lecture was actually really interesting. the guy was about grad student age i think, i'm not entirely sure, but he said he studies marine ecology. the majority of the talk was about ciguatera. certain algae in the reef produce this toxin, which accumulates in fish up the food chain, and causes both gastrointestinal and neurological sickness in people who eat fish, especially larger ones. it seems to happen in cycles, and he's studying what causes it, possibly the el nino/la nina environmental fluctuations. the locals have stopped eating fish because of this, which then causes other changes in the reef when the number of fish is not kept down by fishing.

in the afternoon we did the cross-island hike. our guide was a 68 year old man named pa, who did it in bare feet and described himself as "the most famous guide in the pacific" and "son of polynesia". he said that day was his 3102 time doing the hike. at the trailhead he asked if we wanted him to say an english, maori, or buddhist blessing. everyone said buddhist, although he did all 3. we hiked up to "the needle" this tall pointy rock formation, and the rain was really nice until we emerged at the top where the wind made it very cold. pa said only 15 people (himself being one of them) has scaled the rock all the way to the top. it looked pretty intense. he also said it was a sacred rock for the natives when they worshiped idols, before the arrival of christianity. someone asked "what kind of idols? like sun and water?" and he said "no, of war! it's very good that the missionaries came and brought christianity. you would not be here if they hadn't, because when you got off the airplane we would have eaten you!" while we were stopped pa gave us papaya, which normally i'm not crazy about, but up at the top of that mountain it was the most delicious thing ever. he showed us this rare flower that only grows on rarotonga and is supposed to have some special properties.

the way down was longer and more difficult than going up, especially with the rain making everything slippery. it was kind of fun because by that point we were just going directly through mud puddles. at one point someone from the back yelled for pa (as he had told us to do in any medical emergency) and we waited for a while as he went back to see what happened. we didn't find out until later that night but i guess gael had slipped and fallen on her back. she finished the hike though and seemed ok. we crossed 4 or 5 rivers which were rushing and very muddy from the rainfall, but that was really cool. at the end there was a waterfall that people went swimming under but i was cold and wet so i didn't stay long.

back at the hotel everyone obviously wanted to shower so we just wore our suits and 2 or 3 people went at once. we left all our wet muddy shoes by the door which was a terrible idea, as for the rest of the week the room smelled absolutely awful from them.

that night we had dinner at the nu bar across the street. gael said we could all get an appetizer, a main dish, and desert off the menu. i got potato wedges and spring rolls, which was way more food than i needed to eat. then i had a very difficult decision between chocolate cake with ice cream or an ice cream sundae. i went with the cake and shared with kendall who is lactose intolerant so couldn't have ice cream. again, most of us went home completely stuffed, and my tummy hurt a lot so i just read my book in my bed and went to sleep, although some people went out.

tuesday it was pouring rain again. in the morning we went to the avarua school. we first watched 2 schools practicing for the big dance competition on wednesday. apparently it's very competitive, although it's supposed to be more of a showcase than a competition. the kids were amazing! after that we went to another school building and had morning tea (lunch for us) and a lady talked to us about the education system there. it's basically like nz, they have to go to school from age 6-16, with optional preschool before and high school up to age 18. they use both cook islands maori and english, and kids come to school speaking either or both of those. in general it seemed like most everyone is fully fluent in both languages which is really cool. hopefully english won't take over like it has in nz.

after that we had our volunteer activity. originally we were going to be helping the esther honey foundation doing some sort of survey of stray dogs on the island (there are dogs everywhere, although they all have collars. someone told us the government puts collars on all of the strays). however there was some sort of miscommunication with ies and they thought we were coming just to volunteer for the whole week. so then it was decided that some of us would go play with and walk the dogs anyway, and others would be working at the rarotonga library. however due to the rain all day on tuesday, we all ended up at the library, which is about the size of the allens hill library. they said they had asked for 7 people, and when 30 of us showed up it was a little chaotic. 

gael said there was a dress rehearsal for the dance competition at the mangaian hostel (where we had had our dinner saturday) so some of us decided to go watch that, and one of the bus drivers took us so we didn't have to walk in the rain. however when we went in the said it had just ended, and by that time the bus had left. so we just hung out there for a little while, and when the rain lightened up slightly we walked back to the library, where i joined everyone who were stamping and putting new sign out cards in books, which was actually kind of fun. we were constantly running out of supplies and the librarian said "we've never had this many volunteers before!"

after that they took us to the cook islands trading center (citc), the main shopping area in town, where we just wandered around. ej and i went to the bank to get their famous $3 notes (they use nz money, although they have their own 1, 2, and 5 dollar coins and $3 notes which are apparently worth something to money collectors. the coins are really cool too. the $2 is a triangle). they were nice at the bank and we didn't have to pay any extra to exchange. there are actually 2 different $3 notes, one pink and one green, so i got both of them. i also bought a post card and stamp (postage is cheaper there than in nz! - so it will probably take ages to make it home). we also went in some fancy jewelry stores and looked at black pearls, but that was way out of our price range.

after that we had 2 back to back lectures at some other hotel's conference center. the first was a guy talking about economics of small island nations which was pretty boring. unfortunately i was in the front row, so hopefully my occasional nodding off was not too obvious. basically, it's very expensive to import things, and fuel is ridiculously expensive. their main industry is tourism, although they do export black pearls from the outer islands as well as fruit and fish.

after that we had a bathroom break and then came back to hear bout traditional pacific voyaging from te aturangi, the vice president of the voyaging society. it was actually really interesting, my favorite lecture. he told us how he and a group of others including one of our bus drivers built a traditional canoe in nz and sailed it up to rarotonga, a trip that should have taken 14 days but took them 24. they also sailed over to tahiti and up to hawaii and then back down to rarotonga.

the voyaging society has built rarotonga's own canoe too, called "te au o tonga" which means "the mist of the south." traditionally to move the giant canoes from the forest where they were carved to the water, they would kill a bunch of slaves and use their bodies to roll the canoes on. to move the modern one they just had everyone in the community help carry it. anyway, the day they were moving the giant hulls to the water it was extremely misty, as it never has before or since, which was seen as a sign that the canoe was favored and blessed by the ancestors. on their voyages they use traditional navigation and steering techniques (although they do have gps and a motor on board for emergencies as required by law). it takes 6 people at a time to sail the boat, so they need at least 12 on board. they do 6 hour shifts where half are sleeping and half are sailing, then have a meal together, and swap.

te aturangi was also part of a group that sailed te au o tonga to french polynesia and performed a haka in protest french nuclear weapon testing in 1995. he also organized the sailing of a whole bunch of canoes to gisborne, nz (the easternmost point) for the dawn of the new millenium, which made for a very famous photo in newspapers worldwide. the rarotonga canoe, te au o tonga, was damaged by a cyclone and is currently being repaired so that they can resume teaching the old sailing techniques to the new generation.

after that talk we went to another bbq at teh aro'a beachside inn which was a lot of fun. the owner was this guy from hawaii who was quite a character. when he wasn't at the grill he was mingling with all of us and telling stories and making jokes. they were selling tshirts saying "rarotonga: wear the fox hat" (say it out loud a few times and use your imagination). he told us a story to go with the shirt as follows:

a few years ago prince charles came to visit rarotonga, and the whole time he was there he was wearing a davey crocket hat. as he was leaving someone asked him why he was wearing that hat when it was so hot out, and he said that when he had told the queen he was coming here, her response was "rarotonga, wear the fox hat". tee hee

wednesday the weather was back to being beautiful, which gael said was good because she had no more rainy day activities for us. we we did captain tama's lagoon cruise. instead of our usual mini-van buses this fun colored wooden bus came and picked us up and took us to muri beach. we took 2 glass bottom boats that did not look like they could hold 20 people, but somehow we fit about 25 of us on one and a few people went with all the other tourists on the other. our captains were 2 native guys a little older than us, and they brought a ukulele and a guitar which they played and sang to most of the time which was really cool. they also let the musical people in the group play and sing if they wanted. first we went out to the reef and snorkeled/sat in the sun. 

then we went over to the island we had explored when we were paddling the vaka ama on saturday, which they said is called "no touching island" and a lot of people get married there. each newlywed couple plants a coconut tree, and they said thats how they keep track of the marriage: if the tree is sick someone's cheating, and if it dies they got a divorce. they said "one guy's planted 13 and they've all died". there was a lot of that sort of humor, clearly rehearsed and corny but still entertaining. we laid on the beach for quite awhile and got tan, and cooled off in the water, which was amazingly turquoise and very warm (and also quite salty). it turns out all the random huts and decorations there were from this group, although there is also a little pavilion place where they have weddings, and they were decorating it for one that afternoon while we were there. as we were leaving we saw the bride coming out on a boat all decorated in flowers and palm fronds.

anyway they made us lunch (and said "no women in the kitchen here we do all the cooking. that's why no one lives on this island. over there where we live (on rarotonga) the women cook"), of which the main courses were fish and fried banana. probably my two least favorite foods in the world. i am really not a picky eater, but everyone from this trip thinks i am because on a tropical island there is a lot of fish and a lot of bananas, the two things i hate. it was ok though because they had coconut too which i ate tons of.

after lunch they had a "show." first they showed us coconut husking, which was a little anticlimactic since we had already seen that on saturday. in addition to husking and opening the coconut they showed us how to get coconut milk (not to be confused with the coconut water in it when you open the nut). you grate off some of the white coconut meat into some mesh (like cheesecloth) and then squeeze it and the liquid that comes out is the coconut milk. he went around and squirted it on all the girls arms, as it is great moisturizer and smells fabulous.

then they did a pareau tying show (there are 375 ways to tie them). they had laura and shaymali be models, and gave each of them 3 different outfits (with plenty of mildly crude humor). then they made tj and tom demonstrate some guy's pareau outfits which were silly and taught them a pretend haka that ended in them chanting "i am stupid." after a little more beach time we sailed back to shore, and went to the hotel to shower.

then we had dinner at portafino, an italian restaurant. we had chosen our orders the night before (soup or salad and fish or fettucine alfredo) so that it would be faster because the dancing competition was at 7 that night. before dinner we had one last lecture, from an old man from nz who was basically the cook islands' only trader for most of his life. unfortunately he spoke very softly and very slowly, so although i have a feeling his stories were pretty interesting, it was very hard to follow, and many people fell asleep. gael said after that he had a stroke last year, so that explains part of the difficulty. after the talk the scary american lady who i think was the owner of the restaurant kind of flipped out at people for moving chairs and tables around, it was a little bizarre. we eventually got our dinners which were delicious, although not the enormous portion sizes we were getting used to there.

we then walked over to the auditorium, which was completely packed, and sat on the steps up the bleachers to watch the end of the dancing competition. the costumes were very intricate (taina said some of the parents had been working on them for 6 weeks) and the dancing was again, amazing.

after that ended, we made our way to the banana court, the bar where we had heard from multiple people that's the place to go on wednesday nights. when we got there it was only a little after 10 and kinda empty except for all the ies kids, but it filled up and there was lots of very sweaty dancing. i sat and people watched for a good majority of the time.

ej had met this guy, john, another night out somewhere, and we were talking to him and his friend for awhile. he's in a traditional dancing group and spent 8 months in china performing. they had a show in rarotonga on friday, but we would be gone. i told him i'd tell riley to go though, since the ies christchurch group was arriving the day we left. the bars all close at midnight except on friday night, so we all were leaving. john and his friend (ken) offered to give me and ej rides home on their motorbikes (most of the other ies kids got a ride in the back of a pickup truck) and we were super excited. then they were like, do you want to go the long way (around the island) and we said sure. they took us to muri beach, and to see the giant canoe (te au o tonga, the one the voyaging guy had talked about) which was really cool. we climbed up on it and took pictures and stuff. when we got back to the hotel sophie and some others were sitting outside playing with a stray dog that they had named rufus (and several other names i think) and we hung out with them for a bit and then went to bed.

thursday morning was our free time for the week, and we were going to go to the beach but a lot of us were rather burnt from the day before, so we decided to just walk into town and do some souvenir shopping. however, that walked turned out to be extremely hot and pretty long. i bought a beach towel that says cook islands, and other people got jewelry and shirts. then we had to power walk back, and we were trying to hitch a ride in the back of a pickup, but apparently people only do that at night because we were unsuccessful. some of the other kids had rented motorbikes which looked like a much better means of transport. 

sean had wanted to buy a ukulele all week, and people had told him to go to the prison for a cheap one (when we went by the prison on our first day tour taina had said that it's probably the only prison where they let the prisoners out during the day and they come back at night). one of the bus drivers took him and a few others to his house and they made drums out of logs with chainsaws and they sold sean his ukulele. i'm not sure how they got chosen to go but that sounded really cool.

anyway, we loaded our bags into the vans and then walked across the street to the airport. the "gate" area was this grassy courtyard that was really pretty, although we were all sweaty from our walk. the flight back was uneventful, i slept a lot and read my book (but i did not finish it). when we arrived in auckland most of us had to go thru the biosecurity check at customs because of our muddy shoes. some of the security people washed peoples shoes off for them, but mine did not. 

rachel had lost her purse on wednesday night, including her passport, and at first they thought she was going to have to stay on with the christchurch group for a while, but she and gael wen to the government on thursday and they said she could leave, but she was not through auckland airport immigration by the time we left, so gael stayed with her. i assume she made it eventually. our bus driver back from the airport was making all these dry jokes, with no change in tone from serious things, and he said the weather changed while we were gone and got cold and rained a lot and 6 people drowned, and we thought he was kidding but he was like no i'm serious. and i looked online when we got back and i guess a school group was canyoning somewhere and there was a flash flood and they died. crazyness.

anyway, auckland does feel really cold now, it's only in the low 60's (i hear it's a lot warmer at home now) which feels especially cold after a week in the tropics.

rarotonga 1: friday-sunday

i did so much this past week the entry for it is going to be absurdly long, so i think i'm going to break it up into sections. so here's the beginning.

some of the ies girls had a party at their flat friday night before we were leaving (at 6 am on saturday), so a lot of us from ih went, but security came and said we had to leave after a little while so i was back by midnight. getting up at 5 was still not fun, and all 5 of us ih girls had to wait for the bus which was half an hour late because all the other ies people were late (and many of them still drunk from the night before). one of the girls forgot her passport, and was actually  mad when gael said the whole bus was not going to wait for her and she'd have to take a cab to the airport, and another one threw up both before the bus got to us and while at the airport.

we arrived with plenty of time to spare anyway, and stood in lots of lines. our flight left at 9 something, and on the flight we got breakfast which was ok, i just got cereal because the hot breakfast looked iffy. people said it was really good though. i slept most of the 4 hour flight, and when we landed it was friday afternoon in rarotonga (we crossed the international date line). the jetway was literally a set of stairs on wheels that some guys pushed up to the plane, and when we walked into the airport it was all open and very tropical feeling. there was a man playing the guitar and singing in cook islands maori and people who were doing tourist packages got leis (they are actually called eis there) and stuff. it was also quite warm (but all the temps are in celsius so i'm not entirely sure how warm. i would guess in the 80's).

we got our bags and met our guide, taina, and we put all our luggage in the 3 vans and then walked to our hotel, the aquarius, which is literally across the street from the airport, on the beach on the north side of the island. the hotel was quite nice, with a big dining area/bar/lounge with a big deck and pool, and hammocks and lounge chairs on the beach. the coral reef is really painful to walk on though so no one goes swimming from the beach there. 

we found out that all the girls (24 of us) were all sharing the dorm-style room with bunk beds, and the 5 boys had 2 hotel rooms between them. the dorm room wasn't as bad as we were imagining there were sort of dividers around the beds, and we each got a locker/cubby type place to put our stuff in. however, my big suitcase didn't fit in the cubby, so i heaved it up on top of the stack of 3 lockers, so i could reach it from my bed (i had a top bunk). now there were walls extending from behind the stack of 3 lockers, making it look as if there was a solid surface extending from the top as well where i could have put my suitcase. in fact, it was just open behind the lockers, so had i pushed my suitcase a little further it would have fallen in and been impossible to get out. actually, the girl on the other side of the little wall space dropped her toiletry bag in there, but someone from the hotel climbed in and somehow scaled the walls to get back out.

after leaving our stuff at the hotel we had a drive around the island (it's 32 km all the way around on the main road. there's a "back road" a bit further inland most of the way as well. and that's basically all the roads.) i was in the van with Taina, our tour guide. she is a cook islander but lived in auckland for at least part of her life. she looked about 30 but one of her daughters who hung around with us sometimes was definitely high school age so i'm not really sure how old taina is. adults there all look a lot younger than they are. it seems like rarotonga would be an awesome place to grow up. in school the kids learn lots of practical stuff as well as academics, like climbing coconut trees and traditional dancing and crafts, and taina said they can pretty much do whatever they want as long as they're home by dark, and "it's not unusual to leave your 5 year old babysitting your two year old" which she said took some getting used to when she moved there from auckland.

anyway, we drove around and she told us lots of stuff. avarua is the main town on rarotonga, but there are i think 8 other little towns around the island. all the chiefs of rarotonga got together and decided to give land to all the other cook islands (there are 15 total, i think 12 or 13 are inhabited) where they have hostels to stay at, because everyone has to come to rarotonga for national business, or to fly anywhere internationally. also, you cannot buy land in the cook islands. people of cook islands descent must find out their ancestry, and then go to their relatives and they will give them some land. non-islanders can lease land, and we saw a little house that was leased for $10 million (i think they said the longest possible lease is for 60 years).

most of the resorts are on the south side of the island where the lagoon between the coral reef and the island is big and there's some islands, and the water is the most amazing turquoise color. we stopped and took lots of pictures. it's really weird watching all the huge waves breaking on the reef because it's so far off shore and you can't see anything sticking up that the waves should be breaking on. when we went by where the airport is only separated from the water by the road and a cement wall, taina said it's a fun game to play chicken and stand on the wall as a plane is coming in and try to stay there as long as possible. i kept suggesting we go play that game all week.

when we got back to the hotel we had a bbq out on the deck which was really good and we were starving by that point so we ate a lot. after that we went to the national auditorium to see a junior dancing competition. they were absolutely amazing! their dance here is really cool. the girls do this circular movement with their hips (not exactly like hawaiian hula - they describe it as "the washing machine"), and the guys bat their knees in and out really fast. and everything is to live drumming. when that was over we just went back and went to bed.

saturday (the second one) we were supposed to be at breakfast at 8, so most of us got up at 7 and took showers in the 3 bathrooms attached to our dorm room. i actually got up at 6:45 so i wouldn't have to wait. i was using my phone as an alarm, and even though i had no service there and i turned it off during the days the battery was almost dead by the end of the week. i think while it was on it was constantly searching for a tower which drained it really fast.

all week we had breakfast in the hotel which consisted of a buffet with little individual boxes of cereal and milk, bread for toast with jam and peanutbutter, yogurt, and fruit salad. after the first few days i started making pb sandwiches for lunch, since that was the meal we were supposed to pay for on our own with the $100 gael gave us at the beginning.

after breakfast we walked down the street to the punanga nui public market which is only on saturday mornings. there were lots of stands with local fruits, jewelry (especially black pearls, which are one of the main cook islands exports, but are too pricey for me), sarongs (called pareaus there), and some food venders. i bought a blousey shirt, a necklace with a purple sea urchin spine (for only $3!), and a starfruit to try, which turned out to be my  new favorite fruit. lee got a ton of arrow root which he was giving away to everyone. it kind of looks like the texture of banana but tastes like potato. back at the hotel i tried it with ketchup (well, tomato sauce, ketchup does not exist here) and it was pretty yummy.

after that we went to the national auditorium to do traditional crafts. first we tie dyed pareaus and laid them out in the sun to dry. we put leaves and flowers on top which were supposed to make faded patterns but only a couple people got that to work. a lot of people's pareaus turned out really well. i am not a big fan of mine, it's yellow and purple and not very exciting.

while those were drying we made eis (aka leis in hawaii). the girls made head eis, which you basically make by braiding strips of these big leaves, and to add a flower you just braid it in. some people were having a lot of trouble and ej just made hers big enough to go around her pony tail. my ei was kind of simple and plain but it stayed together in one piece so that was good. the boys made neck eis which were just bunches of leaves shredded most of the way up like fringe that they wore over their shoulders. we also wove plates out of palm fronds for our dinner that night, which was pretty crazy. most of us had some substantial holes, and there was a lot of variation in size.

next some of the men ("warriors") demonstrated how to husk a coconut. i think there were 5 stages of the coconut: flower, green, ready to drink (called "nu"), ripe (when they are brown and fall from the trees), and old and sprouted. they are husked when they are brown and ripe. they stuck sharp sticks in the ground (i think they are called "ko") and showed how you impale the "face" (end where it was attached to the tree) half of the nut on the stick, because that's the soft side. then they just kind of twist and pry off pieces of husk and continue until it's all off. then to open the nut from the inside they use a sharp rock and hit it in the middle of the lines running from the "face" (3 circles, which are 2 eyes and a mouth) to the back all the way around until you can open it in half. then you can drink the water inside and eat the meat. they said the record for husking a coconut is something like 3 seconds. it took most of the people who tried several minutes. then they were like, but real warriors just use their teeth, and proceeded to show us. it was pretty intense.

after that we learned to dance. the boys started before us and we were dying laughing at them trying to bend their knees in and out. then these 2 girls who had been helping us weave and were 14 and 15 lead all the girls in this dance. the feet part was just two steps to the right, and then two to the left and so on. that's about all i mastered. we were pretty awful with the hip movements, i was lucky if i happened to be swaying to the correct side at the right time, and the arms was just sort of random waving since it was hard to see and i was just trying to move in the right direction.

after that we went back to the hotel to change, and then went to muri beach to do vaka ama (outrigger canoe) paddling in the lagoon. by the time we got there we were only going to have like 45 min to paddle, and there were 2 canoes that took 5 people at a time, so we had to take turns. eventually the guides decided to cancel the lecture we were supposed to go to after, so then we just hung out on the beach for awhile. the outrigger really does make the canoe much more stable, although it looks funny, like it's a second mini canoe attached to the side. we paddled out to one of the islands across the lagoon that had all these random windsurfing sails and huts on it and then came back. we found some ripe coconuts on the ground and marc proceeded to husk them with his teeth for sophie and ej and me. however once you eat all the meat from around the edge of the coconut halves, it's a lot of work to get to the rest of it. we were trying to smash them on rocks semi-successfully, although sophie and i both made ourselves bleed (not from the rocks, but from the sharp coconut shells). 

we then went back to the hotel to change for our dinner at the mangaian hostel with all the group that had been teaching us all day. they told us to bring our woven plates and wear our pareaus and eis, and most of the girls ended up wearing either black or white tank tops to go with our colorful pareaus. it looked like we were going to a dance recital. we were ready early so they took us to trader jack's, a bar and restaurant on the harbour that has been destroyed by cyclones 5 times and rebuilt. we looked silly wearing our outfits but there were 30 of us so we kind of took over anyway.

then we went to the mangaian hostel and after a welcome speech and prayer (most of our dinners involved a prayer) we put our plates to work. there was a lot of traditional food with no labels, and a lot of exotic fruits and veggies, including kumara (sweet potato), arrow root, taro, paw paw (papaya), coconut, and watermelon. some were really good, some were not so much. for desert there was this weird starchy gelatinous stuff and i'm still not sure what it was. my plate leaked a little, but overall it worked pretty well.

after dinner they performed a bunch of dances for us, and then at the end were like "ok your turn." first the guys did their dance which was hilarious, and then they made all the girls stand up and we were terrified that the 2 girls who lead us in the afternoon weren't going to, in which case all we would know how to do is stand there and sway side to side. luckily they did come out to give us some idea of where to wave our arms. after the group dance they made us get up in small groups and "free style" dance which turned out to be a competition and they kept having smaller and smaller groups go until finally stacy and marc finally won. they got cds of the traditional music, as did the winners of the coconut husking races.

after gael made a little thank you speech we went back to the hotel and most people went out. a group of us went to the nu bar, which is directly across the street from our hotel, and when spoken quickly sounds a lot like "nude bar". we just sat at a picnic table talking and being silly for a while, and then went back to the hotel where molly and i played cards by the pool for awhile (we couldn't get anyone else to play so we played spit and rummy). it was fun because i never play cards here and i miss it from the school with the sfu, and molly was venting about boy drama which reminded me of karen.

sunday we had to get up early again for church. the girls had to wear skirts below the knee (no pants or short skirts) and we all looked pretty spiffy. we had breakfast at the banana court on the way, since our hotel restaurant (and most other things) was not open on sunday. then we walked the rest of the way to the cook islands christian church where we sat on the balcony upstairs. it was actually more traditional than i expected. most of the speaking was in cook islands maori, although there was some english as well. i think that was a special sunday because all the boy scouts and girl guides (like girl scouts) were wearing their uniforms and tehy sat in front and they did the majority of the speaking and readings instead of the minister. everyone stood up for all the songs, and there were no hymn books or anything, everyone just seemed to know the songs (which were in the maori language). everyone was dressed up nicely, and there was actually a sign saying women and girls should be wearing skirts and no flower eis were allowed.

after that we had morning tea in the sunday school building next door, which consisted of lots of fruits and baked deserts, and basically served as our lunch. i had pineapple meringue and chocolate cake which were both amazing, and lots of watermelon and coconut. a lady spoke to us about the history of the church, which was the first, and is still the main one in the cook islands.

we then walked back to the church, and changed into our swimsuits to go to the beach. we just walked down the road from the hotel until we saw the beach and cut through some trees, possibly on someone's property. we just stayed there and laid in the sun/played in the water all afternoon. we had a lecture at the hotel at 4, which was not the most exciting thing ever. the man was half c.i. maori and half european, and he talked to us about their chief (ariki) system and how the tribes conduct politics and stuff. he went through a LOT of powerpoints with family trees and genealogy and stuff which put a lot of us to sleep.

after that we went to the paw paw patch for dinner. taina said we were guinea pigs because it's one of the only places open on sunday. it was a nice restaurant/bar which i think was attached to a hotel, so pretty similar to where we were staying. we all sat at 2 long tables, and there were some other touristy people there as well. a lot of people got drinks at the bar, and i got "iced chocolate" which was chocolate milk and ice cream, and very delicious. after waiting for ages, there was a big bbq buffet, and the food was AMAZING. seriously, my favorite meal of the trip. there was this rice stuff, and this creamed spinach with coconut dish called rukau, and potato salad (they have that everywhere there). all amazing. after eating a TON we found out there was desert too, with all kinds of good stuff: chocolate cake, starfruit cheesecake (SO good), watermelon, ice cream etc. i ate to the point of feeling pretty sick but it was all SO good.

that night since nothing was open some of the guys decided to build a bonfire on the beach and basically all of us ended up going, although i left pretty early because i was tired and feeling anti social so i read my book for awhile and went to sleep.

aniwhenua/rangitaiki trip

so this weekend was another kayaking trip, and it was lots of fun.

natasha (my kiwi friend from all the other kayaking events) had said i could share her tent, and she was driving so we requested i be in her car. so it was us and another girl, michelle, who's from michigan and lives in empire (next door to ih). so natasha got here around 6:30 and we were on the road by 7. she has lots of good cds including the juno soundtrack and lots of me first and the gimme gimmes so we listened to that the whole way there. it was like a 3.5 hour drive to rotorua, and then another good hour south and east to murapura. our campground was right next to lake aniwhenua (pronounced something like on-i-fen-ua), which is a lake created by a dam in the rangitaiki river. 

we got there around midnight so it was obviously  dark. we used natasha's headlights to put up her tent (it was her uncles fancy alpine one so it was really nice, and very easy to set up). michelle had one that she had gotten off trademe (nz's version of ebay) and had some difficulties but got it up finally. kendall had gotten there before us, she rode with an instructor named ben (called speedy because he is never ready on time i guess) and travis, who is from california and lives in empire, and looks like the guy from the notebook so i always want to call him noah. courtney and adrienne (who both also live in ih, adrienne is from california and went to fuljames, and courtney is from arizona and has never done any kayaking before) were sharing tents with the others, but they were riding with a lot of the aucc people who were making a big caravan, so they were still in auckland at 8pm, so they got there later than the rest of us. we went to bed pretty soon after we arrived. there was a really nice (nice in terms of campgrounds) bathroom with running water and toilet paper which was cool since it was free. however there were no lights, and i'm dumb and forgot my flashlight again so we had to take turns going. when discussing my not bringing my flashlight again i said "i'm needy and retarded" and everyone thought it was really funny and kept repeating that all weekend. they also thought it was hilarious when i described wearing socks with flip flops as "toe wedgies"

the next morning we woke up and i had one of my pbj's that i had brought from ih (i made 5 between thursday and friday, and wrapped them in saran wrap and brought them, along with 3 things of ramen (which they call noodles, not ramen here) and some granola bars). so anyways i had a sandwich for breakfast and after a bit they called everyone over and said we were going to do 2 runs of the grade 2 river because there were so many beginners. they also took one raft to the grade 3/4 to see how long it took, since the river was super low, which changes conditions pretty drastically.

so i got in the first kayak group, as did everyone else (kendall, natasha, courtney, adrienne, travis, michelle, lee, etc) and everyone drove over the dam and down the river to where the hydropower station is. after getting all our gear, we dragged our boats over to the edge of the platform area we were on, and they hooked a rope on and lowered each boat down this huge cement wall, while we walked/climbed down the slightly less steep cliff next to it. it was pretty cool.

from there there was another cement platform right over the water, and some rocks leading down the the water on the side. the people who had the good spray decks (made of wetsuit material) got to launch off the cement platform right into the water, which looked scary but really fun. most of us beginners had the crappy decks though which cannot withstand the force of the water when you do that, so we just took them down the rocks and got in in the water.

we all gathered around, and watched some of the pros going over the waterfall just upstream of us. i ended up in a group with 2 instructors, named jess and izzy, and just me and courtney as beginners, which was quite nice because they were always right there to save us, although their boats were the little short kind called "play boats" that a lot of the instructors have, and apparently they are a lot slower going down the river than our long classic kayaks, so they would have to paddle just to keep up with us when we were just floating along.

they said they had gone to otago uni (in dunedin on the south island) and were in basically the same club there, and they just moved to auckland and had no friends so they joined aucc. they were really nice to us (some of the guy instructors tend to yell, not meanly just loudly, but it makes it more stressful), and they gave us snacks halfway down and stuff. and there was this cave about halfway down and colm went by and told us to pick some foliage and take it in and leave it in the cave as an offering to the river gods. at first i thought he was just messing with us bc our instructors were new, but everyone else was doing it so we did too. courtney got a huge stalk of plant so i just took some of hers and we successfully deposited it.

however a few rapids later i was aiming away from the rocks and got sideways and flipped over, and freaked out a little and ended up swimming. jess said she thought i stayed under waiting for t rescue for awhile but i really didn't think about that for very long. anyway, she towed me on the back of her boat downriver a little way to some flat-ish rocks and james got my boat and paddle and we dumped out the water and got me settled again without too much trauma.

a bit later i was following jess and we ended up getting very close to some trees on the side of the bank, to the point where i had to duck to not get them in the face, which sort of rolled me over in slow motion. however i knew jess was right in front of me so i hung on for ages waiting for her to come roll me, and i finally felt her trying to barrel roll me back as i was reaching to pull off my deck to swim, so that encouraged me to hang on just a big longer, and eventually she and izzy righted me together. then however, we discovered that my paddle was suck in the tree, and izzy had to go back upstream to get it, and actually had to get out of her boat. i felt really bad, but i guess they were happy i didn't swim.

after that there was no more upside-down time, and we met everyone else around the same time at the get-out which was nice because it was where the river turns so we just had to keep going straight ahead, rather than veering off at the right time like at fuljames. after we got out we had to wait for the person whose car natasha's keys were in to get off the river. then we went back to the campsite, where we saw emily who had arrived earlier and others waiting to go on the second run. we got all warm and dry and i was going to take a nap but everyone was playing this game lee was raving about called mafia, so i was eventually convinced to join them.

in the game everyone sits in the circle, and lee was the 'announcer' so he went and gave everyone a card, and if it was a black queen or jack you were a member of the mafia, and a red jack was the detective, and all the other red cards (we weren't playing with the whole deck, there were probably 15 of us) were just ordinary people. then everyone talks about who they think the mafia is, and comes to a consensus on who to kill. then everyone closes their eyes except the mafia, who point and agree who to kill, and then they close their eyes and the detective opens theirs, and gets to guess one person who they think is mafia, and the announcer nods or shakes his head, and then everyone 'wakes up' and finds out who died. the goal of the game is to not die (and for the citizens to kill off the mafia, and vice versa). it was the most fun when i was a mafia member, and campbell was like horrified about my lying and "cold-blooded-killing" in the game. i did not win though  :(

the rafters got back quite late, so there was no second run of that for the day, and the second group of kayakers were just getting off the river when the sun went down so i bet that was pretty chilly. the weather report said it was supposed to rain all weekend, but it was kind of grey and chilly on saturday.

we used travis and natasha's little camp flame things to boil water for ramen (which courtney had never had before!) and had dinner. since everyone was going into the pub in "town" for evening activities, we made s'mores right after dinner. natasha was the only kiwi in our group so she was really excited, and they were pretty tasty.

natasha and i went for a stroll to visit everyone else since we were all kind of cliquey and only hanging out with our little group, but we ended up just kind of awkwardly standing in circles by everyone else. then keri announced that it was time to go to the pub, and most people piled into people's vans, but natasha said she didn't mind driving so we just went in her car. when we got there there were maybe 10 locals (we had been warned they can be quite 'dodgy') and then like 60 of us, so we definitely took over. most of our little group was pretty exhausted so we just kinda stood and sat around people watching and not being at all social. the song that everyone goes nuts for here whenever it comes on (i've heard it a lot of places), called why does love do this to me, came on and everyone went nuts, and natasha explained that it's kind of a 'kiwi anthem'.

we couldn't decide if we wanted to kayak again on sunday, or raft the hard grade 3/4 river, and i had the brilliant idea of asking campbell if he would take me in the duo kayak on the hard stuff, but he said that would be super dangerous on account of the low water level. so we decided to just figure that out in the morning. there was a chorus of people singing the 12 days of christmas only with alcohol for all the days, i'm not sure where that started from. and i looked for izzy and jess to buy them beers (it's the tradition to buy them for people who rescue you, or for instructors who get you all the way safely) but i could not find them anywhere. that night was daylight savings, and i guess at 3 am on sunday we went back to 2 am, and according to aucc tradition, nothing that happens between those hours counts. however we were falling asleep at the bar before midnight, so we decided to just go back and go to sleep.

sunday morning we woke up later, and packed the tents and everything and had breakfast. during breakfast (as well as all our previous meals) there were a bunch of wasps hanging around and most everyone was freaking out and i kept telling them to calm down and sitting still is better than flailing. so then we're standing around after breakfast and i look down, and oh hey there's a wasp stinging me. it was quite ironic. however after the initial stinging and swelling i forgot about it and by the afternoon it was basically gone (i wish i could say the same for all the bugbites on my wrists and ankles).

anyway, after a while there was a big group meeting and keri said there would be one grade 2 kayaking run, and there were 8 spots open on the rafts. so they first took the names of everyone who wanted to raft, and drew 8 out of a hat. i put my name in because i was still undecided, but didn't get in (michelle from our car was the only one i knew who did). then they took everyones names for kayaking, but it turned out there was enough gear for everyone who wanted to go, so that was good. adrienne was tired so she and some others just hung out at the campsite all day.

the rest of us drove back up to the hydropower place again, and this time i got one of the fancier looking boats. i also happened to color coordinate my paddle, my spray deck and my water shoes, completely unintentionally. ross was the only instructor to be found for quite awhile, and he said he would take someone in the duo. i considered, but before i had made up my mind molly, who is also in ies, said she wanted to. we also were all trying to get the few nice spray decks so we could get launched in, but i sadly did not. then ross lowered all the boats over the cliff, and eventually some more instructors showed up (a lot of them were kayaking the hard river though). when i went to get in the water i discovered that my spray deck didn't fit my boat after all, so then i had to drag my boat back up from the rocks and someone eventually found me an extra deck that fit.

once in the water i discovered that the fancier boats are a lot harder to steer, although you can lean on the 'rails' (sort of the corner of the side, it helps with turning) a lot more before flipping over. courtney, kendall, natasha and i ended up in a group with alana and guido as our instructors. they were really nice but as soon as we started paddling around i discovered just how sore/tired i was from saturday. they asked us if we could t rescue and we all said yes (although natasha can't, but she only swam once the day before, and she said she will learn at pool training). i volunteered to practice because honestly i was kind of hot in my polypro since the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. i am really much less scared about holding my breath underwater now.

the river was lots of fun again though, and my only flipping experience was leaving the cave (where we left more offerings). apparently the river gods really don't like me. anyway i shrieked as i went over and guido was right next to me when it happened, so i was fine waiting for a t rescue because i knew he was close. i even saved my paddle! so they were proud of me for that. that was the only tip of our whole group for the entire river, pretty impressive. it's really fun going over the rapids when you hit them straight on, it's just scary when you're sideways and feel like you're going to roll over. my steering was so bad in that boat though, every rapid i went through i would spin around and end up facing upstream by the end. i always stayed on top of the water tho, so that's the important part.

we were the first group to finish, so we played around by the get out and practiced t rescues again (natasha did not ha ha) and eventually some others arrived too and we got out. ross and molly played in the wave (that's where the pros play around and do tricks) and they had gone off the edge when getting in and molly had basically gone underwater bc she was in front, but that sounds like so much fun, you get to do the hard stuff because the person in the back knows what he's doing and can roll if need be. i kind of wish i had spoken up sooner, but campbell said he will take me in that some other trip, and it was probably good for me to practice my own paddling more. after we were all out we helped load the boats all on the trailer and just hung around for awhile.

as we were leaving everyone was waving at us and we couldn't figure out why, but then the road was so twisty it took awhile to find a safe place to turn around. when we finally came back to everyone they were surprised to see us, and mo, one of the instructors said he just needed a ride back to his car, so he crammed in with us and we went back to the campsite to pee since most of us were bursting, and then took him to his car. then we were off to meet up with everyone at the "secret spot" which is the coolest thing ever. there is a geothermally heated river meeting a regular cold river, so there's like a gradient hot pool, so you can sit in any temperature you want.

we got directions from 2 people and still missed the turn the first time, but when we finally found it we met the people who hadn't done anything all day there. there was one sign that said due to increased popularity they were going to build a boardwalk down to the pools, so i was glad we got to see it in its original form. there was a second sign that said not to get your head wet, on account of the risk of getting amoebal meningitis. natasha said that's a rule of thumb for all hot pools. i guess it makes sense that stuff that can live in you is growing in the body-temp water, but i was very grossed out. i had to explain to everyone that the vaccine we get is for bacterial meningitis and would not help with this. gradually all the other kayakers showed up, and we basically took over the whole area (there were a few other people there who were not with us who i felt a little bad for, as with at the campsite). there was talk of the raft getting suck and some concern that the rafters hadn't arrived yet, but then after awhile they showed up safely. everyone made a 'massage train' which was pretty cool, although people kept breaking it to adjust their temperature.

as it was getting dark (around 6) natasha said we should get going bc she didn't want to get back super late, so we left before the crowd, and decided to stop in rotorua for dinner. someone in the car mentioned burger fuel, which is also in auckland and i have heard lots about their amazing burgers. we didn't know where the one in rotorua was, but natasha had a sudden memory from a soccer trip there so we got there and when we went in we saw another car of kayakers was already there. it's kind of pricey, because the burgers are enormous, but i wasn't super hungry so i just got kumara (sweet potato) fries which were AMAZING, and they came with this garlic mayonaise stuff to dip in (i think it's called aioli?) as we were eating basically everyone else arrived from the secret spot, and one of the older guys, michael, apparently is a shareholder in the company, so everyone arriving after him got a discount. we decided it was ok though since we didn't have to wait in the huge line so we would get home sooner.

we drove the rest of the way with no stops, and i stayed awake to keep natasha company and we listened to juno and the gimme gimmes again, and the ramones and the lion king soundtrack and talked and were silly most of the way. we dropped another girl who got a ride with us at her house in south auckland, and then we got back to ih around 11, so that wasn't too late. i hung up my wet clothes and went to sleep immediately.

today (monday) i went to roll training again and a lot of people are getting it but i thus far am not. there were way less beginners than before which was nice, and squirrel was my instructor again. my goggles were nice for the whole watching the paddle blade part, and molly had a nose plug she borrowed from someone, so we were trading them back and forth during our turns, but the nose plug didn't stay on my nose so i gave up on that, and then she got taken away by another instructor so she had to deal with no goggles. i kept hitting the bottom of the pool with my paddle, which is bad because you're supposed to sweep across the surface. however squirrel showed me how i could use the bottom to push myself back up in an emergency, which was a bad idea because i kept doing that every time then instead of trying to go across the surface. she would them hold my paddle in the right spot, as i rolled, and gradually was helping less and less until she said she was only using one finger and it was really all me, but as soon as she stepped away i would go back to hitting the bottom. by the end i was completely exhausted, and now my right calf, side, arm, and shoulder all feel like i won't be able to move them in the morning. now i am going to sleep. good night!