The first thing we did was head to the zorb, and it was so much fun. You had a choice of doing it wet or dry, and I was told the wet one was more fun so that's why I chose, even though it was winter and pretty cold to be outside in just a bathing suit. Then you got to choose whether you wanted to go down the straight hill or the zig zag hill, and I was advised to do the zig zag, and it looked like more fun, so I did that. It was AWESOME. It was totally unlike anything I've ever really done before and it's hard to even describe, but you basically can't see where you're going at all and have no idea what's coming next or when it's ending and you're just being sloshed around all over the place with no control over where your body goes. It was fantastic. And luckily they filled it with hot water so while in the zorb it was nice and warm, even though getting out was pretty freezing. Oh also I got run over by the zorb which was pretty sweet haha. I laid down on the hill with 2 of the other guys and we all got run over by it. Pretty fun.
Then we went and got lunch at this cute place called the fat dog cafe and headed on to the next big adventure - white water rafting. This was also tons of fun and pretty exhilarating at times. I was in a raft with 5 other people in my group plus a guide and we were definitely the most fun of the 5 different rafts. We didn't have anyone who was afraid of flipping or didn't want to get too wet or anything boring like that, so it was a good group. We went down a couple little waterfalls and eventually went down a 7m tall waterfall, which was pretty awesome. We got completely soaked because the front of the raft basically just went down into the water and flooded the raft and such. We also had fun paddling back into the bottom of little waterfalls after the big drop which was lots of fun because it would push us down and get us all soaked. It was pretty amazing too how we were in super cold water but our wet suits kept us so warm. I had no idea wet suits were that good at keeping people warm, and it made it soooo much better.
Then we went to the backpackers hostile we were staying in and checked in. It was actually pretty nice and better than I'd expected. We had a 4 person room and it was all nice and clean so that was nice. We went out to a bar that we all had coupons to for a free beer and got that. I really liked the beer which was nice considering I'm usually not much of a beer drinker. We ended up staying there for a while and getting some food and a few more drinks which was lots of fun. Then we all went back to the hostile to change and headed off to the Polynesian Spa which had hot mineral pools and spas to relax in. It was really nice and relaxing, minus the awful smell of sulfur which consumed basically the whole town but was very strong at the spa. It was also nice that I got in for free because that was my prize for winning the Minties game we played on the bus - who can make the rectangular minties wrapper the longest by ripping it and such. I guess I'm a good problem solver. =)
- there were seat belts on the coach bus we took that we all had to wear. do coach buses even have seat belts back home?
- on the way to the zorb there were a bunch of cows just running on the side of the road next to cars. kind of awesome.
- New Zealanders are so friendly I love it. We ran into this guy at the zorb place that our camera guy Brian had met at the airport, and he needed a ride somewhere so without hesitation we just let him ride the bus with us and dropped him off on our way to lunch. I feel like Americans would not normally be that friendly. Our Australian group leader said New Zealand is the friendliest country she's ever been to, and so far I can definitely see why. I love how nice everyone is =)
- It's going to be weird getting used to using 1 dollar and 2 dollar coins rather than actual dollars. I don't know if they even make $1 and $2 in paper money because I've only seen coins so far, and it's weird to go through my change to pay for normal things.
- I'm definitely going to need to get used to being away from college park drink specials. All the drinks here are definitely more than $2 and it's probably gonna be a little rough. Also, I asked the bartender yesterday what prices were for mixed drinks and she asked "like in a bottle?" lol. Once I said like rum and coke she understood but it was pretty weird for her to not know what I meant by mixed drink. Also, although my rum and coke was $7.50, a sign for a red bull vodka said $12. Now that's just crazy...
- Also, people were talking about cigarette prices and apparently here they're like $12 a pack which I thought was expensive, but our camera guy said they're like $20 in Australia! I can't believe anyone would smoke at all if they had to pay $20 for every pack. That's awesome though because it probably helps deter a lot of people from smoking.
- On our way back from the spa we stopped at a little shop to get snacks and check out beer/wine and they had like, a mini one serving coke bottle for $3.00 and a 1.5 liter bottle for $3.80. The prices of things here are so strange. Needless to say I bought the 1.5 liter and felt pretty cool drinking from it as we walked back and people looked at me weird.
- I think it's pretty ridiculous that I wore my bathing suit 3 separate times yesterday and it's winter here and freezing. And it's going to be even colder on south island once I get there. It's still so weird to me that it's so cold here in July lol.
No comments:
Post a Comment