"Pooping maggots that shag themselves to death"

^ a.k.a. glowworms! We'll get to that in a bit.

I'm not sure I'll be able to post any pictures with this post, but it took quite a bit of work to even be able to write this! This website does not like the convention center's internet (or vice versa), and the wireless internet where I'm staying has a vendetta against me. It's a post, at least!

Time to pick up where I left off with New Zealand. The last place I updated about was Taupo! I'll pick up there (the morning of 6/24).

Before leaving town in the morning, we got up a few minutes early, so we could walk across the street and look at the lake. There were lots of black swans swimming around. The lake was massive, and very pretty in the morning light. We hopped in the car, and headed NW towards Waitomo Caves. On the drive, we passed a ton of sheep and cows, and drove past/through awesome fog and clouds. We were a bit rushed on time. We were supposed to be at the caves at 11:45 for our noon tour, and it was a 2:30ish minute drive from Taupo, and we left just after 9. That means we didn't have time for lunch—just an apple each and some crackers. (By the way, NZ braeburn apples are incredible!)

Corey and I signed up for a three-hour tour (yes, you can start singing) with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company, to go black water rafting in Waitomo Caves. We began our tour at their lodge area. On our tour were Natalie and Kugan from Indonesia (he's in charge of marketing for BMW's M series cars, and she was originally from Japan). Our guide, Terry, took us down to get suited up. I haven't worn a wetsuit since our family went white water rafting in British Columbia, and Corey never had! It was definitely an adventure getting into mine! Our garb consisted of our head to toe (well, ankle) wetsuit, squishy wetsuit booties, plastic boots to go over those that had some actual traction to them, a scratchy sweater thing, and a wetsuit jacket. We also got our own helmets with attached headlamps, and later each got our own inner tube. We took a ten-minute drive to the river that feeds the underwater river in Ruakuri Cave (our cave). Using our inner tubes as a raft, we each jumped, BACKWARDS, off a platform, down about 4 meters into the river. This was a practice run for the jumping-off-of-waterfalls that we were going to be doing in the cave! The water was REALLY cold! Kugan had a little trouble paddling over to the ladder back up. That MAY have been a hilarious recurring theme throughout the afternoon. :)

We walked for about 20 minutes up through the forest to the mouth of the cave! Since we were going to be quite wet, no cameras were allowed. Luckily Terry had a waterproof camera with him, so we took some fun(ny) pictures throughout the day.

We started out walking into a large cavernous ‘room’ that had two open-air walls. We saw some really gross bugs, listened to Terry talk about the cave and safety a bit, and set out on our adventure! We had to walk down a rocky path to a narrow walkway. We did a lot of wading through the water, with Terry leading the way! A few of the highlights:

-“Limbo-ing” under limestone and calcite formations that were VERY close to the water. Our rafting cohorts weren’t so great at this part (and it was hilarious to watch)!
-Terry telling us he had some bugs in a jar, which we would have to eat. It turns out they were fish-shaped chocolate covered marshmallows. ☺ We were all very relieved!
-The “real story” of glowworms: they aren’t worms, rather they are “pooping maggots that shag themselves to death!" The glowing part is their poo. Once they have eaten for a few weeks, they coop up in some sort of cocoon, and then hatch into little gnats. They only live for a couple weeks (probably because they have no mouths in their new form), and spend their time…. ensuring the survival of their species. So yeah, that is a glowworm in a nutshell! If you can forget that they are a little creepy, it is possible to enjoy that they (and their poo?) are quite beautiful! They basically dangle their poo (the glowing part) from little threads. The point is to attract bugs (food), which they pull up and eat. In some places, there were just a few glowworms; in other places they were so numerous that they provided enough light to see cave features.
-Jumping (backwards) off of two waterfalls. The largest jump was easily about 10 feet tall!
-Floating through the cave with our lights off, listening to the sounds of the water.
-Exiting the cave in a lush, green, and rainy forest!

Once we were all out of the cave, we hiked back to the car, dropped off our inner tubes, and drove back to the lodge area. We helped each other wiggle out of our wetsuits. We were a funny site to see! After a fabulous warm shower and putting on dry clothes, we met back up in the lodge for bagels and tomato soup! Seeing as Corey and I didn’t eat lunch, this was VERY welcome! Terry had to take off to lead another cave expedition (he did three in a row!), so we took a few pictures together and said goodbye. Kugan and Natalie stayed with us and chatted for about 20 more minutes over soup and bagels. (mmmmmm!) We were able to watch a slideshow of the pictures Terry took while eating. They bought a CD with the pictures, I loaded them onto my computer, and we split the cost! Once I can figure out an easy way to upload pictures here, I’ll put some up. They are hilarious!

After leaving, upon Terry’s suggestion, we headed north for a few minutes despite needing to drive south. The reason: Big Azz Ice Cream, aka Terry’s favorite ice cream stop. We couldn’t decided on which flavors to get, so we got 3 scoops to split: cookies and cream (my least favorite), orange chocolate chip (soooo good!), and Hokey Pokey, NZ’s national ice cream flavor! It was described to me as a toffee flavored ice cream with small toffee bits mixed throughout. I’m crushed that I only had Hokey Pokey once! I have to figure out a recipe and make it at home! It doesn’t matter that I’ve never made ice cream before… it was *that* good! The ice cream counter was located in a fruit stand/market, so I picked up some fruit: three more braeburn apples, an incredible tomato, and my second persimmon of the trip.

We hopped back in the car, and headed south. Clearly, I let Corey drive, so I could eat ice cream! Don’t worry, I shared… After about an hour of driving, it became dark (yay for southern hemisphere winter)! This was actually a good thing, seeing as we had 3.5 hours of driving ahead of us. If it had been light, the drive would have likely taken us 6 hours, seeing as we were huge fans of frequent photo stops! :D

We did have one little hiccup on the drive. We missed a hard-to-see highway turnoff, and our GPS tried to reroute us through a private gravel road that dead-ended at a locked farmer’s gate. With Corey’s help, I was able to 10(ish)-point-turn the car around, and we got headed back on the right path!

We pulled into Palmerston North around 7:30, and checked into the first hotel we found (the Illuzzion). The guy rented us his last available room, and didn’t want us to look elsewhere, so he took $20 off the normal price. His internet was free, and the price was right!

After getting settled into our room, we headed out on foot in search of dinner! We ended up at an Irish pub called Rosie O’Grady’s. I had fish and chips (which were hands down the best I’ve ever had—they used fresh-caught John Dory!), and Corey had a burger and chips (fries). A semi-private party was going on at the same time, and they were having a pub trivia party! It’s a good thing we weren’t actually playing, because we hardly knew anything! We stunk! Clearly, we need to brush up on our random New Zealand rugby championship sports players. Despite our lack of knowledge, it was fun to try anyway! We walked back to our room, and got a great night’s sleep.

The next morning, we drove the last ~2 hours to Wellington, and turned our car in around 10:30. We had the foresight to stop at the hotel we had a reservation at, in order to drop off all our bags! We dropped the car at the AVIS counter at the airport, and hopped on the shuttle back into Wellington. We took the cable car up to the top of a hill, and then walked down through the city’s Botanic Gardens. This was gorgeous, and took us a few hours to get through. I particularly enjoyed taking pictures of flowers and trees, smelling incredible herbs and roses, and seeing all of the city’s beauty! On the walk back towards the city, we passed through a very old cemetery. It included a small Jewish section, with about 40 headstones. The dates in the cemetery ranged from the early 1800s to 1950 (very few headstones were from post-1920s deaths). After exiting the botanic gardens, we walked past the main government buildings down to the waterfront, and over to New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa. My favorite part of the museum was definitely their exhibit on NZ’s natural hazards. It was by far the best example of this type of exhibit I have ever seen! It was so captivating, and very educational! They even have a shake-house that simulates a mid-sized earthquake!

After finishing at Te Papa, we walked around Courtenay Place (downtown) looking for a dinner spot. After much hunting, we ended up at a Spanish restaurant. I had a lentil-based Moroccan tagine and a glass of wine. YUM! Corey had a pasta bolognese, which made him a happy camper. I’m bummed, because my pictures for the day (post-botanic garden) have been corrupted/deleted/are missing, so I won’t be able to show pictures of Te Papa and dinner. Lame! ☹

We took the bus back north to our hotel (we were staying in an area called Lower Hutt, just north of the city). We hadn’t checked in earlier in the day, so we did that. We also had the pleasure of meeting our hotel’s cockatoo, Pickles. He’s 38, and says “hello,” “Pickles!” and “goodbye.” Quite a fellow! He also liked to dance, and I have an adorable video of me dancing with him!

Ok, that’s a LOT of writing. I respect anyone who made it through all of that! I’ll get on to my field trip eventually. Australia is great. Very different from NZ, but I’m really enjoying myself. I presented my poster today at the conference, and had some great discussion with someone whom I had previously an internship.

On a side note, Corey was “stuck” (boo hoo) in New Zealand from Monday-Friday. His original Monday flights were two of the casualties of the Chilean volcanic ash. He made it home this morning, and was able to get a half-day of work in before the holiday weekend! Hopefully having the next three days off will make it so he’s not too sidelined by jetlag!