A bit of catching up to do!

I think I'm going to have to just forget about my Tongariro Crossing post for now, which I'm sure just breaks all your hearts. Really. If anyone really wants a play-by-play of the hike just leave a comment and I'll get around to it someday. Otherwise I'm just going to scrap it, because I still haven't written about other things we did over two weeks ago!

So let's take an imaginary trip back in time to when I wrote the post from Hamilton. Remember? It was raining and pouring and Alexa was snoring, and we had just gone to the zoo?

Great.

So the day after that entry we left Hamilton and drove to Waitomo Caves. Waitomo is a town that may as well be sitting on top of swiss cheese for all the hundreds of twisting, winding tunnels and holes underground. It's cave central. Various companies offer all sorts of tours, ranging from full-day caving experiences to casual walks on platforms to check out the stalagtites, stalagmites, and "glow-worms" (read: maggot shit). We opted to go somewhere in between and took the moderately-adventurous route with black-water rafting. It's not quite as intense as it sounds. You ride in an inner-tube, not a raft, and the water moves fairly slowly for the most part. There's two waterfall jumps, but neither was higher than about eight feet. Still, the walking portions were a little bit tricky as the rocks were incredibly slippery and the water tended to be fast moving where it was shallow. The coolest parts were the portions where we switched off our helmet lights and floated along through absolute darkness. The maggot shit overhead made the top of the cave look like a clear night sky, only the "stars" were greenish-blue instead of white.

Here we are after the journey, all dressed up in our wetsuits. I look a bit impatient because I had to pee SO BAD and the guide assured us that peeing in our wetsuits would only end with us smelling like festering piss-pots.

After leaving Waitomo we drove to the town of Taumarunui and prepared for our two-day canoe trip down the Whanganui river. The trip was fantastic. The weather even cooperated for the most part, giving us sunshine for the entirety of the first day and only a few patches of drizzle the second. In total, the trip was somewhere around 71 km long and passed through around 50 or 60 grade 1-3 rapids. We were fortunate (and skilled) enough to not capsize the entire time, even though a few of the rapids were quite challenging and we managed to get stuck on the rocks more than once.

A mild stretch of the Whanganui on our second day of paddling:

After the canoe trip, which brings us to Friday, 12th December, we decided to go ahead and make the drive back to Wellington. Our canoe guide assured us it was only a 4 hour drive. I suppose this might have been true had we stuck to the 100 km/hr speed limit the whole way, but that was pretty much impossible since a large chunk of the drive involved going down narrow roads, around sharp bends, through mountains, and alongside sheer drop-offs--all without guard rails, of course. Plus we had the unique experience of finding ourselves stuck in the midst of a sheep traffic jam. Awesome. I've embedded the video below:

We arrived in Wellington late in the night and crashed at our friends Jason and Tammy's place. The next day we wandered around Wellington one last time, sent some mail, did some shopping, and spent the night hanging out with Jason, Tammy, some Monteith's, and Flight of the Conchords. Yesssssss.

Sunday we boarded the ferry to Picton. It was a nice ride. As promised, it was a scenic journey. There was no boring, "water only" period, since by the time the north island was starting to fade out of sight, the south island had already come into view. I guess they really aren't that far apart. The last hour and a half of the trip took us through the Queen Charlotte Sound, which was absolutely beautiful, with rolling, forested hills and pristine beaches on either side. There were even a few homes along the sound, and I cannot imagine living in a more remote location. I reckon they'd have to take boats into work.

A seaplane taking off from Picton Harbor:

We spent two rainy, miserable nights tenting in Nelson. While there we saw the World of Wearable Art museum, which was pretty interesting, and also had a section of restored cars. Nelson is where we're planning on staying after we wrap things up in Queenstown, and it seems like it will be a suitable home--when it's dry, anyway.

From Nelson we began the 13+ hour journey to Queenstown which took us back through Picton, and down along the Pacific coast through Kaikoura and past Christchurch. After passing Chirstchurch we veered away from the coast and drove southwest through the MacKenzie Basin, a huge glacially-formed area of farmland, rolling hills, mountains, and lakes. It was gorgeous although rainclouds were on our tail the entire time.

On the drive to Kaikoura we spotted a random seal colony. Here's one of the seals chilling out on the rocks:

This is an awesome lake we passed during the drive to Queenstown. The neon blue coloration has something to due with glacial melt, but I don't really understand all that science mumbo-jumbo. It's just pretty. Look:

A little bit past the lake, we came to a turn-off for the Clay Cliffs, a little self-service tourist attraction down a long dirt road. It was a bumpy ride, but worth the view.

Eventually we made our way to Wanaka, our last stop before Queenstown. Wanaka is a little town about forty-five minutes from Queenstown. It's sort of like Queenstown's little brother. Both are primarily tourist towns, both sit on large lakes, and both rest in the shadow of impressive mountains. There's not much to Wanaka, especially compared to Queenstown, but before leaving we decided to check out Puzzling World. We went on a whim, thinking it would just be a silly, touristy sort of place, but it actually ended up being one of the coolest things we've seen so far in New Zealand. Puzzling World is made up of two main halves: a huge outdoor maze, and an indoor "hall of illusions." The hall of illusions is definitely Puzzling World's main selling-point, featuring room after room of crazy optical illusions that really need to be seen in person to be appreciated. It included an "Ames illusion room," which was one of the filming techniques used to make the hobbits look tiny in Lord of the Rings. Alexa already put a picture of that in her blog, so instead I'm going to show off Puzzling World's Roman style toilets:

Nice, yeah? Don't worry. They had real toilets too.

Anyway, from Puzzling World we headed straight to Queenstown. We found an apartment, I got a job, we went paragliding--yeah, we're all caught up now. Fantastic!

Also you may have noticed not one, not two, not three--actually it is three. Three new photo albums on the sidebar to the right! Check them out at your leisure. There's a few good shots in there, I promise.

Lastly, just to avoid falling behind again, I'll fill you in on our Boxing Day exploits. After having a video chat with Christine and family, during which Madison had a great time making faces at the camera and Zach bombarded us with sarcasm, Alexa and I headed into town for our day's adventure activities. First we took an hour-long jetboat ride down the Kawarau and Shotover rivers. It was a lot of fun, but nothing compared to what we did next: white-water rafting on the Shotover river. It was awesome! White-water rafting is one of those things I've wanted to do for the longest time, but never really had the opportunity. We went through several grade 4-5 rapids and finished up going through a 170 meter tunnel. I'd show you, but the maniacs want $39 for a pack of four pictures. Outrageous, eh?

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. Enjoy the pictures and have a great New Year if I don't update before then.