Down Under in Lennox Head, 2007: Back from Kiwi Country!

We're back from Spring Break 2007! EDITED

I have so many exciting stories for you all. I even have a journal entry from every day! Now the issue is having to type all of them out...which will take a while and might not happen for a bit because I have a crazy busy time ahead of me.

Tuesday night I have to make a presentation for my Sports Admin class and Wednesday morning is the dreaded marine bio final! I have a lot of work to do for both of those things...planning, creating study guides and doing research...and I have to take the final at 6am on wednesday because JD, Ashley and I leave for Cairns that morning.

We will catch the bus at 8am to Byron Bay, where our greyhound will pick us up at make the2 hr drive to Brisbane, where we will then catch a plane to Cairns and attempt to find our hostel. I am excited about the Cairns trip.. after all we will be diving on the Great Barrier Reef!! I just wish there was a bit more down time after this New Zealand trip.

EDITED!!!! NZ ENTRIES NOW INCLUDED

3/1 Packed

Woke up at 10:45 and didn’t do a whole lot. I was on the internet trying to get my email to work for a while… but I should have been doing work too. I packed for New Zealand and hung out with the kids a bit.

3/2 No Surf Competition

I made myself the traditional egg sandwich for brekky, finished up my marine bio paper, and threw a couple more things into my bag.

Our first stop was at a surf training facility- the best/only in Australia or something- it was a pretty pointless stop. Then we went to another SCU campus where a guy talked about their surf studies class- I wouldn’t mind taking that.

Then it was off to then Quicksilver Pro surf competition. It was a gorgeous day. There were food and clothes vendors and we walked down to the beach. Then we learned that the competition had been moved to another location. We got back on the bus and after finding Cara- we went to location 2. It had been moved again. At location 3 we walked around looking for somewhere to eat and it was moved again. So much for seing people surf. Then we went to the airport. I sat across the aisle from Ash, JD and Angie. My bags didn’t get searched and I exchanged most of my American money for NZ$.

We took a bus to our hostel and had to deal with the mess of who was sleeping where. I got kind of crappy hearing, “ I don’t want to sleep with so and so..” or “well lets just sit here and wait for something to happen.” It was about time for stuff to be closing in Auckland and we hadn’t eaten dinner so I was a bit cranky.

Auckland was CRAZY. We ate at Wendy’s for those people who love and miss it. I saw a girl shoplifting, a man peeing in a phone booth, trash all over, including white paper shreds outside of the Kodak store, and a group even saw people bloodily beaten in the street. We watched a guy singing and playing guitar on the street for a while until we discovered we were being videotaped. We had a good time laughing about the push button timed showers, having 1 key for 6 people, and just the overall craziness of the city.

In the middle of the night I jumped down off of my bed and flung open the door…only to realize I had no idea why that had happened. Just a weird dream I guess.

3/3 Mudslides and Rotorua walk

We woke up- very slowly, an hour after we had planned to. Showered, packed up and got Dunkin Doughnuts and a large delicious carton of milk.

The drive to Rotorua took most of the day with our extremely slow driving bus driver. We stopped at a crappy tourist café/shop for lunch, and at an inactive volcano right outside of Auckland, a gas station, and the Agro Dome.

Our hostel- Base X- was much better than the first. We got a room for 8 so we added Tristan and Craig. We looked at some souvenir shops and then went to Hell for dinner- a pizza place. It was pretty good. JD and I split a pepperoni pizza. I was the only one with a passport so I made a pretty ridiculous purchase afterwards.

We came back and played Kings. Mmm I love chocolate! After I was out, JD and I went on a walk around town. A much different sort of town from the previous evening. The streets were clean and the population was smaller and much more under control. We ended up at a guys bachelor party. His dad kept calling me gorgeous and telling JD to take care of me. Haha.

We came back to discover that everyone had gone to the bars so we got jackets and went back out. We ended up in the Government Gardens where we saw old cowboys and Indians, and a flapper too. We played human checkers, saw Elvis, got Burger King (yea, in NZ its actually called that- not Hungry Jacks), saw hot springs and a museum. It was nice to just walk around looking and talking. We came back and talked to Tracy and Mike for a bit waiting for everyone to get back.

3/4 White Water Rafting

I didn’t want to get out of bed again today but eventually we did and got breakfast at a close café. I had a bacon and egg pie. It was actually pretty good. Then we went shopping. JD and I went to about 7 souvenir shops and they all had the exact same things. We didn’t buy anything. Angie and I took a nap and then went white water rafting. It was AMAZING. The tour guides were cute and entertaining and rafting was so much fun!! I loved it.

We went to Hell again for dinner. We went out on the town to LAVA and then went to the giant checker board.

JD, Mike and I walked home and we tried to resolve some issues but it didn’t work out so well. We played UNO and Euchre with Luke in the hostel.

3/5- Skydiving

We woke up at 8am and packed up. Much to our disappointment there were no chocolate chip/banana muffins at Indigo- so I had a blueberry one. We stopped at a hot spring- that actually was quite hot, a mud bath-that squirted on to my white shirt from 10 ft away, and Huka Falls- which were amazingly gorgeous! We took lots of pictures then finally were off to Taupo.

We stopped for lunch; I had a nasty sandwich with sprouts and tree lettuce. I told Julie to book two extra spots on the skydive trip (which had been moved to that day instead of the next) for JD and I. We had debated whether or not we should do it a lot, because of the money.

After some laziness upon arrival at the Tiki backpackers hostel, we played Euchre and then I had to get money out of the ATM because our Ball State cards don’t work in New Zealand- so I had to pull cash for everything.

We went to the skydive place and waited forever to get to go. Let me tell you-- that 45 second freefall was amazing. I was scared to death when the gate opened and I saw the first girl fall into the clouds at 12,000 ft but it was SO worth it.

JD, Tracy, Ashley and I all ended up on the same plane. There were two benches and we sat with our legs on either side of them and faced the back of the plane with a piece of plastic separating us from the clouds. It was a tandem jump so we each had an instructor on our backs that talked us though everything. When we reached our altitude we sat on our guys’ laps and they slipped us into their suits (seeing as how they were the ones with parachutes attached to their backs.) Then when it was my turn (I went 3rd) we waddled over to the edge of the plane, with my toes on the edge and no ground in sight—the instructor pushed us out.

We did a back flip out and that first second was pretty scary- but the next 44 were so incredible. The feeling of weightlessness and nothing around was just awesome. You could look down at the clouds and see yourself fall through them. My heart leapt a little when he pulled the parachute cord but then I could see the mountains and lake—it was just gorgeous. He spun us around a bit on the way down too- that was cool.

For landing I just had to lift my feet straight out in front of me and then run when we hit the ground.

JD and I went in on a “ground DVD” because they weren’t awesome but it did catch our landings. We got free t-shirts but I’d say with the cost of the dive they should be given automatically.

3/6 J² Makes Cheap Dinner

We woke up around 9:30, showered and went out on the town in Taupo. We wandered around and looked at the shops until noon when we met Angie and Ash for lunch (after their massage). We ate at Breakers and I had a pretty delicious chili chicken wrap. We checked our email at an internet café. The first time in 4 days. No internet since we’d gotten to New Zealand. Be proud of me. I sent mom, Maggie and Abby messages on Facebook so they know that I am alive. Then I wandered around a park near by and paid 40 cents to us the “SuperLoo”

I ran into JD and Ash and we went back to the Tiki backpackers. I laid around for a while after that, just listening to music until JD and I went to the grocery store.

It was gigantic. It was like Sams Club so we had quite the adventure trying to find stuff to make for dinner, snacks for “the hike” and birthday stuff for Tracy.

I (and JD...ahem) made dinner- spaghetti and garlic bread for the7 of us and later we had hamburgers, sausages and cake to celebrate Tracy and Tristan’s birthdays. Fatty Americans.

We didn’t stay up late because of the early rise in the morning. We put streamers and balloons up to try and surprise Tracy when she woke up.

3/7 “The Hike”

We woke p at 6:40 in the morning to be out of the hostel by 7. There was an hour and a half bus ride to Mt. Tongoriro for our 6-9 hour hike. We were told to wear shorts and several layers on our upper body. It was really cold when we first got out of the bus and I already wasn’t crazy about the hike but they told us that we would warm up.

We started on pretty flat ground and walked for about and hour and twenty minutes until we arrived at the first stop- pit toilets. We rested for about 25 minutes and then started up the hill. We were leading the group but I fell back pretty quickly on the Devil’s staircase.

It was a pretty steep incline (near vertical in spots) and you had to find the right rock patch to come up. I was having trouble breathing (as I am very out of shape) and got to the point that I felt like I was going to be sick. However, I took breaks and kept trudging forward.

Eventually we got to the top where it was FREEZING. Most of the group thought that we had reached the top but we were far from it.

We ended up walking up another very steep, cold, windy mountain into a rain cloud. It was crazy. Everyone was tired, lots of girls had cuddled up behind a rock face and were crying. Our fingers were going numb, as were our legs (since we were in shorts and everyone else on the mountain was in full-out climbing gear.)

The wind was enough to knock you over, the ground rocks slid out from under you and we were all wet from the rain cloud we were standing in. We got to the summit and there was nothing to see- more cloud coverage with cold, wet and wind.

I hid behind a rock before I started the descent because the first part was pretty steep and I was by myself at that point.

I waited for the Jones, Rachel and Craig and then we slid down the rocky/dirt mountain. I fell a couple of times but nothing big. Finally the clouds cleared and we saw this gorgeous turquoise lake.

Then we went on a winding hike around the mountain side. Eventually we started downward and got to the “hut.” Everyone stopped there to eat and rest but I just pulled out my bag of Cheesy-O’s and started walking down with Mike, Tracy, Angie and Cara.

We walked quickly but none of us had a watch on so we just kept speculating how far we had to go.

The hike was very intense but it was pretty awesome. There were so many different terrains; it was just a great feeling of accomplishment. I was having a tough time on the upside but I did like it- and ended up finishing 4th of our group of 20 some. /Haha. Yes you know, everything is a competition for me. 6hrs and 20 minutes.

We stayed at the best hostel with real furniture.

3/8 Tracy’s celebration

We woke up at 7:15 to get on the road to Gisborne. I wasn’t able to sleep much on the 8 hr ride because we went to bed early which wasn’t the best idea. We also had BK for brekky which didn’t do much for my stomach. There was an accident on the windy mountain road and so we stopped for a while. Not to mention our bus driver not knowing how to drive and being pissed by snails the entire way. The countryside was beautiful though and there were MILLIONS of sheep along the roads.

When we got to the hostel we got put in the 10 person attic. Everyone was hungry so we got ready to go out an celebrate Tracy’s birthday. We ended up at a burger place where they were not very nice. It ended up being not a great night as I fought with Awal. I sang karaoke after weaseling my way into the lineup, danced alot, tried to fight a palm tree guy, was mean and went to bed.

3/9 Long Day

It was a pretty boring day. JD, Angie and I talked before we got in the showers. The 3 of us tried to sneak out for breakfast before anyone else woke up but right as we were getting ready to leave—everyone woke up.

We walked around town for a bit and then took a nap and went to dinner. Tracy, JD and I shared BBQ chicken and pepperoni Domino’s pizza while creepily and sloppily eating outside of the restaurant the rest of them had gone to.

We watched “The Recruit” and I went to bed early.

3/10 Bus Ride, Crazy Auckland part 2

We woke up at 7 for our ten hour bus ride. I couldn’t sleep most of the way but eventually I did. For about the last 2 hours. We had BK for dinner in Auckland, bought doughnuts for the morning (that subsequently ended up as snacks) and walked around the city and down to the pier and Sky Tower. It is much more normal in the day light.

I checked my email and wrote postcards. We went to bed late, with 3 hours before we had to wake up. There was a car gang fight on the street that I could see from my window at about 3am. A guy took a road sign and threw the metal pole through a car window to start it.

3/11 Dirty Shoes

I was quite exhausted on our way back home. I slept for most of the plane ride. We all got our bags searched in customs on the way back, which sucked but what can you do? My shoes got taken away because they had dirt on them from the mountain climb that could contribute to foot and mouth disease.

They cleaned them while I stood waiting in the customs line, people all staring at me wondering what kind of bad thing I had done.

We drove the whole way home without stopping on the bus, which was nice because we always make unnecessary stops. Luckily everyone could wait 1.25 hrs for a bathroom break this time.

We didn’t really do much when we got back to Lennox other than unpack and get on the computers. I also started getting my information together for our Dangerous Animals presentation in Lyn’s class.

3/12 Lazy Day/HW

We had Life and Culture in the morning- it went pretty well. We actually went over time but he gave us some extra breathing room because there were 4 in our gourp. I spent the rest of the day working on my presentation for Sports Administration, studying Marine Bio and working on our last assignment with Tracy and Sydney.

Up Goes The Plane