Oli Reveals: XI

Another installment of Oli’s round-the-world emails:

The drive down from the Cape was long, driving south and managing to catch
Auckland at rush hour, meaning we spent the whole bloody day driving to
Hamilton. Nothing much happened here, except we witnessed some
bloody-aweful karoke. I’m talking about crusifying classic songs at some
work christmas party, where the landlord had a face contorted with pain, a
memorable expression. Anyways, we headed to village of Waitomo after that,
only on the tourist map because the region is riddled in a vast network of
caves. Signed up for a few hours of ferreting around underground, rapelling
down into the cave opening, scrambling around in the dark, rafting on big
inner tubes down the river and then climbing back out of the cave. The best
part for me was all of us turning off our lanterns and letting our eyes
adjust to the eerie greeny/blue glow of millions of glow worms who’s home we
were in- a huge cave. After a couple of minutes, we had enough light from
these little guys to walk through the cave, watching eels slither down the
river past our feet.

The next day, we drove to the famous Lake Taupo and spent 2 nights there,
soaking in the spas, doing some short walks and basically laying-low, due to
the poor weather. The Tongariro crossing was a complete washout. We were
told ¡§fine weather¡¨, which is latin for a loada crap. We got soaked
within an hour of hiking, passing the blackened rubble-strewn landscape of
Soda Springs, climbing Devil¡¦s Staircase (400 m elevation in 400 m
horizontal distance¡K.that¡¦s right, a friggin¡¦ metre climbed for every
metre walked!!). This steep precarious climb into the mist would¡¦ve been
satisfying if we could see anything¡Kno danger of that happening with mist,
rain and an endless sheet of grey cloud. Maritime climates rock! I assume
that our ascent led us to the South Crater- a huge plateau of rock debris,
its flanks masked by¡Kmist. After that section, we ascended further to a
height of 2000 metres, where you could normally gaze at the impressive
mountains (Tongariro & Ngauruhoe), to the Red Crater. From there we viewed
the Emerald lakes, descending to catch their steamy sulphurous mist and
admire their limpid green colour up close. We pushed on quick to the
Central crater and briefly stopped at a hut before completing the last part
of the hike through scrubland and forest. The whole thing took 5 hours, as
we didn¡¦t stop due to the poor weather!!

While at Taupo, I decided to drive back to Napier by myself, as I wanted to
meet a good friend that I met all the way back in the Abel Tasman national
park, Zeynep. After our brief time in Napier together (which was well worth
the return 300km journey), we drove back to Taupo, met another nice German
girl called Nina and went to Rotorua for a couple of days, as the weather
was still poor. By the 21st, I was supposed to return the rental car back
to Auckland and fly to Australia. I was really torn with the prospect of
leaving NZ, and actually changed my Ozzy flight/ accommodation so that I
could stay for xmas and fly out a week later. Ended up spending a draining
12 hrs returning the rental car and returning to Rotoroa the same day.

As if someone was rewarding me with my choice, I was greeted with sunshine
the following day, so I decided to do a 15,000ft tandem skydive. The four
of us traveling together drove back to Taupo and boarded a tiny pink plane
that rapidly took us to 12,000ft, where the other 3 jumped. When I got to
15,000ft, I shuffled to the aircraft door strapped to my instructor and was
hurled out of a perfectly good plane. Had over a minute of freefall,
absorbing the incredible sight of the NZ landscape, my adrenaline pumping.
The feeling intensified as we dropped into the clouds, as we were then
plummeting at an incredible speed through a shroud where I could no longer
judge distance, but just drop into nothingness. We emerged from the clouds
to once more sight NZ, my ears experiencing the cold air rush, so loud!!
Suddenly, after what felt like 10 seconds of freefall, our ¡¥chute opened,
and the decent went silent. From that point, the jump turned into a serene
relaxed affair, where I just took in the scenery and gradually floated back
down to the airfield. An amazing experience!! Spent the rest of the day
relaxing and had a few drinks in the evening to celebrate. A lucky break
finally!!

That¡¦s another week from Oli, hope you enjoyed reading that? I¡¦m planning
to do some xmas shopping tomorrow, a day before Christmas- it¡¦s never too
late. I still have no festive spirit, so I hope that the prezzie hunt will
give me some¡K.As for you lot, enjoy the festive season and have a great
time with as many people as you can ļ Wish I could see everyone, if only
for a moment!! Take care & merry Christmas from the other side of the world.

Best wishes,
Oli